Last weekend I attended a woman's retreat.  The first I've been able to attend as money, the kids, or timing were always a factor before.  The theme was renewal and the messages were centered around Ebenezer, Ezekial, and Emmanuel.  I know it sounds intriging.  I did to me as well.  Well.......

Ebenezer - stone of help.  In other words our foundation.  Those things that keep us grounded Christ.  One thing we did was spend so time thinking of things - our "stones of help" -  in our life.  The times we can point to and say God did that.  Here are some of mine.  

• His placement of my family in many different churches, (different communities), giving me a chance to learn skills and lessons I needed.  I learned music, not just piano, but eventually flute, piccolo, and voice and organ.  Music became so much a part of my life that I studied it in college.
• Our house - We would not have this house if God had not wanted us here.  We should never been able to afford it, but God worked all the details and today we have been here exactly 10 years. 
• The community we live in - My husband received the call that he was hired by the school here to take care of their building maintenence and grounds the day I was in labor with our oldest.  We were in the hospital when the school called to tell him he was hired (the only phone we had at the time was a cell phone)
• Food our first winter of marriage - Sam shot a bear that fall and we had meat for the winter.  I may not sound huge, but it was to us.  We were living in a used travel trailer and I was pregnant with lots of morning sickness.  I got sick every time I smelled hamburger cooking, but the bear meat didn't bother me.
• The numerous times our gas gauge has gone up while going down the road.
• The many times when we have come home with more groceries that we should have been able to buy, for the amount of money we had to spend.  We spent about 4 years feeding a family of 5 and one dog + tolietries on $250 dollars a month, without government help. Only God could have made that possible.  By the way we ate well. God doens't do anything half way.

I could go on and on and on.  One of the most recent for us.  Sam's new job. The one he's wanted to do since he was in his teens.  He's a deputy for our county now.  And looking back I can see God leading us to this place all the way.  When I got pregnant with our first it made me rethink going back to college for my final year.  I didn't think I could do my senior recital  at 6 months pregnant and have a baby in the middle of student teaching.  If we had gone back so I could finish, we never would have ended up getting hired at the school.  If Sam hadn't worked at the school, he wouldn't have had the chance and time to join the Sheriffs reserves.  If he hadn't been in the reserves, he wouldn't have had the chance to to get hired when and how he did.  You see the snowball effect. 

Ezekiel - preached renewal to the Israelites at a time when they were exiled and captured from their land.  God wanted to restore them.  He wants to restore us, also.  Resore our hopes, dreams,  hearts, lives.  Whatever part of you that isn't whole. 

Emmanuel - The Savior, The hope of the world, The Messiah, Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Redeemer, Friend, Father, Alpha, Omega...............His titles are endless.  He wants our whole attention.  He wants us to be whole.  He loves us no matter what we've done, no matter where we've been, no matter whats happened to us.  It doesn't matter.  He wants to restore the brokeness of our fleshly lives and transform us into a creation fit for heaven, but that's not a one time occurence.  It's a continual creation.  Just like the Hebrew word used in Genisis 1:1 for creation is acturally means God is continually breathing creation.  If he stops the world would cease.  He is continually molding, shaping and breathing life into his creation - into us. 

Then tonight I heard a message on restoration.  I seemed to me just an extension of the retreat last weekend.  God wants to restore us, but we usually think of going back.  Do we really want to go back to what we were last year? 5 years ago? as a kid?  I know I don't.  God's restoration is entirally different.  His restoration fixes whats broken, but that doesn't mean going back, it means we move foward.