"RESTORING THE LIGHT"

This picture speaks so much to me. I was unable to be present when the unveiling of it actually happened, but when I walked into the church a couple hours later, I was speechless and emotional. The physical restoration of this 102 year old building has always spoken so much about the spiritual restoration we know that God is doing.  Last summer when we shoveled out tons (literally) of pigeon poo including dead dry pigeon bones, the Lord quickly brought to mind Ezekiel 37 and how HE alone can breathe life into bones as dead as those and make them new. Just like the restoration of this building is all HIM, so the restoration of sinful lives is all HIM. He desires to restore, to bring beauty from ashes and to bring to life something completely dead. Praise God He did that in my life!

When I first saw the light pouring through these windows, it was as if God was pouring His light into that place fresh and new, just like He desires to do in the hearts of people. That is our hearts' desire for the ministry He has placed before us -- to show people Christ, the Light of the world.

We are coming off two weeks of having 40+ people here to help us work on this building. What an encouragement to our hearts and a blessing to the community. It did not go un-noticed!  The Big Horn County News even did an article on it all, which you can read by clicking their link. I love how the author titled it "Restoring the Light". 

So much to tell of these past couple weeks -- God's fingerprint was on it all. A verse we have clung to (which even got printed in the article) is Psalm 127:1: “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.” We are trusting God for every penny and every ounce of labor to restore this building, and He is building! Spiritually, we trust God to build our lives and any ministry He calls us to, because we do not want to labor in vain. Some things we have learned along the way -- 1) it's HIS timing, not ours, and 2) it's not about the end product, but about the journey we are on. I am thankful for every ounce of ministry He has done and is doing in the lives of every person who has labored on that building. We do not wait for a finished product before He can work.... He is so greatly at work already. All glory to God! What a privilege to participate!!