RE-STor-a-tion

I love to do word studies to learn where words originate.
In the definition of the word restoration, we find that something once beautiful, though it lost it's glory, is now being put back together.
I wonder about the breakdown of the syllables which isolates the four letter word REST. I don't know if this is any root of the word but I find it's solo meaning ironically fitting. While we must work to restore something completely, we must also realize that good work is not to be done without some measure of rest. The LORD Himself rested after creating the world and commanded in the OT that peoplet take a day of rest. In the NT we are assured that we can come to Jesus, weary as we often are, as He will give us rest (which we know brings much restoration).

My co worker was explaining to me just yesterday, with a twinkle in her eye, all the highs and lows of restoring the house her and her special friend are working on. My distracted mind went on to think of the endless reality shows presenting multimillion dollar projects that many Americans sit on their back breaking couches to watch, while those on the screen endeavor to polish up the "junk in their lives." It is fun to watch the joy in their faces throughout the process of restoring all kinds of old things; houses, antiques, and so on...


 Many people do this for a hobby; some, to save from having to buy a new house, but I'm sure in some way, they all come away with the same satisfying feeling. I thought "what a perfect portrayal of what Christ is doing in all of our lives?" He takes us; dirty, broken and empty, and renovates us from the inside out. He builds us up again upon the love He offers and the new life Him that promises hope and brings joy that is wrought from within, which is then ever beckoning to burst out and appear on our faces and shine in circumstancial disaster.

What once was lost, now is found; what was blind, now sees.
"Though our sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow."
"Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. Sin left a crimson stain, HE washed it white as snow."