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“So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust…And praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you” Joel 2:25-26.

I have so much gratitude and comfort when I apply this passage to my past.  When I consider the years of pursuing a certain image instead of an image in Christ it saddens me.  When I recall things outside of my control that I allowed to consume me it makes me regretful.  As I look back in my rear-view mirror, I look at the years that were chewed up with self-focus and spiritual laziness.  But God doesn’t have us look at the lost years to resurrect feelings of guilt, shame or regret.  He has us look back at past mistakes or failures to show how far He has brought us.  He not only wants to reveal that He has redeemed us from those times, but He wishes to convince us that those years still do the work of faith in our present and future experiences.  He takes what was lost and returns it just like He promises.  Redeeming those lost years…those lost hopes…those lost loved ones will be restored...some on earth and some in Heaven.  Only a thin veil separates the restoration of where we will receive the blessings.

In The Faithful, Jennifer Rothschild writes, “Just as none of us are as young as we once were, all of us have places in our lives where the ‘locusts’ have eaten – hopes dashed, mistakes made, and losses piled on…but God is saying, ‘I am not only going to redeem you now, but my redemptive touch will not be confined to the present or even to the future.’ God’s work in our lives renews everything that has come before – our best days and our worst days” p. 124.

We all have years that stole our peace and joy, some self-induced and some by the choices of others.  Those years in retrospect can certainly make us sick to our stomach and weary in our soul.  But when God takes our endings (whatever that may be) He begins a redemptive work on our new beginning.  To be consumed with the ending of something might be to forfeit the beginning of something wonderful.  Don’t spend your days and nights with the locusts.  They are liars and echoes from another time that don’t deserve power over you.  ‘You are not your past!  You are not what has happened to you.  You are not your struggle.  You are not someone else’s opinion.  You are not your fear or insecurity.  You are loved, accepted, and complete' p. 126.  You are God’s daughter and son!