Restored

Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved. – Psalm 80:3

Here we are, at the dawning of a new year. More so than many prior years I can think of, I am hoping and praying that the year ahead of us brings with it a good deal of restoration, as well as new beginnings.

A good deal of the Psalms were writing in a great deal of pain by a people who were displaced from their normal lives and thrust into a life of exile in a land and in a culture that wasn’t their own. They desired with a profound longing to be restored: restored to their homeland, restored to their Temple, restored as a nation and as a people.

I think their longing is something we can relate to in our present time. We are longing to be restored, as well, as we have all been thrust into an exile of our own: an exile from our normal lives, an exile from being able to safely be with family and friends, an exile from schools, jobs, and recreational activities, and an exile from being able to worship together as a complete family of faith.

There are a great many unknowns yet ahead for us in 2021, and we begin the journey with a great many hopes. The hope for restoration is deeply rooted within our hearts and minds at this time, and through the light of God’s spirit shining brightly through each of us, we will indeed be restored.

Life will, in many ways, never be the same either; and that’s not a bad thing. This pandemic has given us the gift of re-evaluating priorities and reassessing who and what is important to us in ways that would never have happened otherwise. Perhaps things too easily taken for granted in the past will now be valued for the blessings that they are. Maybe a sense of the fragility and preciousness of life’s gifts have been restored to us, as well.

May we all find restoration and shine brightly in 2021.

PRAYER

God of Light, shine brightly through us so that we might make the world a better place in the year ahead for the sake of us all.

Amen.