Restoration

 

 The sun shines red. 

Not the red of a summer melt  or a fall radiance, but crimson and round and muted from the smoke. 

The smoke that is everywhere. 

Its ash covers the patio chair, and I shake it free from the green pillow as I sit. 

I didn't even realize the sun was shining today until I looked up and saw the eerie glow. My morning walk was hazy and cold, a humid frigid that warns of winter coming and the sound of leaves crunching under foot. 

This doesn't feel like a season of restoration. 

It feels like a season of melting like wax that drips from the candle on the dining room table. 

Perhaps it is the season of the Phoenix. A brazen burn before the ashes reform into wings. 

But this is how restoration comes, isn't it? It is a breaking down before the building up. 

Like the old coffee table I lovingly refinished years ago. I sanded and scraped down the top and the edges, smoothing out roughness and imperfections. But not all the scars were removed. Some were left as a reminder. The muscle memory of the wood that conjures images of my childhood. Sweet memories of growth and family, left to warm the wood more than the honey stain I spread over the maple. 

Scars are what make the restoration beautiful. They are the remnants of the ashes that spread to wings and suddenly, gracefully take flight. 

The word restoration came to us like a breath of shalom. Spoken by the tender and faithful heart of a woman I'd never seen and haven't seen since. Her hands worried the mask she held as she tentatively approached me that afternoon. Her eyes were nervous as she stepped forward and explained that she'd never done this before, but God had pressed on her heart that she needed to talk to us. To tell us that restoration is coming. 

My eyes filled and I held her in a hug unbecoming of the current pandemic. She didn't know what that word meant, but we do. 

We know the hours spent in prayer and petition. We know the hearts that have been broken and bruised and torn in two. We know the relationships that have been destroyed and the feeling of wonder that the sun has come up when your world has seemingly ended. We know the exhaustion of raising a child with mental illness borne of the trauma endured prior to our ever knowing him. 

We knew a promise would come. We hoped for a reprieve in this journey that has felt like prison. And that word, that four syllable masterpiece of the English langue was enough to bring us to tears, after all the tears felt dried up. 

I don't know what this season of restoration will look like. I don't have an hour glass that will count down the grains of sand until fruition and give me a glimpse of the finish line. But I do know this is the season I am in. 

For the first time, I felt the stream of redemption in a sun-scorched land. 

The ashes may be falling, but from the ashes come the Pheonix.