My husband bought an old, dilapidated hoosier. When Burt brought it home, I raised my eyebrows in wonderment. The wood looked like it had been starved of oil for a half century, the latches sported deep-seated rust, and the work surface displayed dents, pits and more rust. A pathetic example of what was formerly a farm woman’s pride and joy as well as the essential cupboard in her kitchen. “What was he thinking?”
“I’m going to restore it good as new, ” Burt announced. “Well, I hope,” he muttered under his breath.
I looked at him and gave him a single up nod of my head.
Burt set to work and for many weeks, he patiently fixed warped and broken drawer bottoms, replaced the tin work surface, sanded and polished the latches, sanded and refinished the wood, and painted the inside. As he painstakingly worked on the hoosier, ever so slowly, the cupboard began to take on a new look.
When he finished the project, he set it on our porch. It stood as stark evidence that even when something that was once beautiful and functional as it was designed to be, but over time, became useless and pathetic, could still be restored.
Burt’s project reminded me of our first baby’s crib. I gasped when I saw it. It was in pieces in the trunk of his car – old, rusty, cracked ends and a side rail that would not stay up. Please let him be a prankster, I pleaded. But he set to work with a clear vision of what it would look like. I had no vision, whatsoever.
He glued the cracked head and foot boards, fixed the side rail, cleaned the spring, painted it white and put large, cute animal decals of the ends. He did buy a new mattress, however. The restored crib turned out perfect. We used it for all three of our girls and sold it at a garage sale for $20.00 ten years later.
In the beginning, God created Man and Woman in His image – perfect in beauty and they had purpose which was to glorify God. But, Man and Woman disobeyed God and lost their original beauty. Their garden home fell into disarray where once-beautiful trees and flowers were choked with weeds and thistles. Nothing remained but brokenness. In Man and creation.
But God, because of His great mercy, did not abandon them. He had a plan to restore them. He would give Man and Woman a complete make-over. Their original beauty and broken relationship with Him would be restored by His grace through their faith in God’s Son, Jesus, and the finished work He did on the cross when He died in our place for our sins.
By faith we too can be fully restored to live a life of peace with God without fear of condemnation, to know the joy of His salvation, and to worship God in the splendor of His holiness. As pathetic and lost as we are in our sin, we too can be restored and made righteous in His sight – for by grace through faith. Fully restored. Beautiful.
“And the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 1 Peter 5:10