Summary: <br> Have you ever taken an honest look at your life, where you are, how you are living, and who you’ve become, and honestly been a little disappointed? Or maybe a lot disappointed? This isn’t how you imagined your life would be. You thought by now you would have things figured out. You thought by now it would be easier and you would be happier, but the reality is a little shy of the dream.<br> These are your ruins. The leftovers of what you imagined life could be. The remains of what once looked so promising, but now is a messy problem for which you don’t know the answer. Ruins. The ruins of a family. The ruins of a career. The ruins of your once promising potential. The ruins where we’re reminded of our pain, disappointment and shortcomings. The ruins where we once had great hope for the future, but now we seem hopeless in the loss. It’s what’s left.<br> Show me your ruins, and I’ll show you where God is primed to work in your life!<br> Our almighty God specializes in restoration. If he had a TV show, he would knock Fixer Upper right off the air. You think it’s amazing to see an old house fixed up and turned into the perfect mix of open spaces, large windows and shiplap … girl, wait till you see what God wants to do with your life! You won’t believe what he can do with your ruins. Not only what he CAN do, but what he WANTS to do. What he’s willing to do. What he’s trying to do, right now.<br> You don’t have to hire God to come in and restore your life, then sit on a waiting list for your turn, hoping at some point his work schedule clears up and he has time to work on you. He is available TODAY to begin the renovation. He is eager to take what’s left and turn it into something beautiful.<br> You’ve seen him do it in other’s lives. You’ve seen the rags to riches stories. The radical transformations from hopeless to happiness. The restoration of families. The healing of a body. The breakthrough in a dream about to go out. You’ve seen it … you know it CAN happen … and yet you question if God would ever do it for you.<br> Why? Why have you discounted yourself from restoration? Why would you ever question that exactly who you are, is who God has chosen to do his greatest work in?<br> If Joanna Gaines can turn a trashy dump into the house every single one of us would LOVE to live in, don’t you think the one who created the entire universe, the one who made the deep aqua oceans, the one who formed the majestic snow capped mountains, the one who painted the sky in the most brilliant of colors … don’t you think he could make something of the leftovers of your life?<br> Don’t you think he can fit together these broken pieces? Don’t you believe he can restore what has been lost? Don’t you know he can rebuild all of this? This is his specialty. He is a restorer. He is a redeemer. And he is YOUR restorer. YOUR redeemer, here to do a personal work in your life. Now.<br> Isaiah 51:3 says “The LORD will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.”<br> Zion was a hill in Jerusalem. The hill on which a battle had taken place. Much like our lives … where a battle has taken place. Where we have fought and sometimes lost. Where war has been waged and we have sometimes fallen short. Where dreams have fallen apart, progress has been stolen, and hope has been threatened. And this hill, Zion, became a fortress and stronghold representing the kingdom of God.<br> God looked upon the ruins of Zion, what had been destroyed and what was left, and he had COMPASSION. Those same eyes of compassion look upon you today. God sees what you have lost. He sees where you are hurting.
