Write and Live: Restoring Years

I wonder about the things I felt I’ve lost throughout these years that I’ve buried myself in nothing else but the pressures and expectations of work. I haven’t really identified them aside from the absence of time. I’d wake up in the morning and rush out of the bed to dress up. I go so hurriedly that I don’t even have time to look carefully at what I’m wearing or if my face was properly made up. In my thoughts are the list of things to do and the problems unresolved and the desire to just get through them until day’s end. It almost feels like a certain kind of panic. I have to finish it, I’d tell myself. Like a hammer it pounds on to me so hard that I’ve already lost the peace even before I tried to step into it.

I’d read the Word hurriedly thinking I’d get something because I comprehend English but it’s more than just reading. Understanding these words take more than just intellect. Today I mull over the “I will restore and replace for you the years”. Having felt that I’ve lost so much makes these words a source of comfort and assurance. I’ve lost time. Valuable time. But the promise is that God will restore and replace for me the years I’ve lost. The years that the locusts have eaten. I’ve lost around 4 to 5 years to the locusts.

Locusts aren’t even “threatening” when I really think about it. They eat anything green. They eat anything fruitful. It’s the normal cycle of nature. The food chain of the earth. But, their threat comes when they are uncontrollable and when what you have planted in the earth is depleted because of their excessive hunger — their greed.

I’ve planted things that bore fruit but locusts have eaten them away and now my life feels like it has been depleted of fruit. Yet, this is where the promise of God becomes evident especially during this time. He promises to restore and replace the years that my fruitfulness has been stolen away and I will be made fruitful again through grace.