How do you see it?

If you were following my blog a year ago, you know that at this point a year ago I was wondering if I was in over my head.   I came into a system that I knew within days was dysfunctional and was surrounded by anxiety and fear.  The way people were treating each other and the lack of trust was palpable.   I can't even count the number of times I thought to myself, "I'm not sure this can be fixed."

Friday morning I was coming home from a meeting with the four of the five "ministry leads" for the organization.  Two of them were people that I have hired in the last 8 months and all four of them are awesome.  We had a great meeting discussing the progress we are making and planning for the future.  Everyone was engaged, there was a spirit of trust and teamwork in the room, and there was a great deal of trust.   I sensed no anxiety or fear anywhere.

Then yesterday, the Assistant Director of our Boys and Girls Home had his first day.   God has brought him to us all the way from Texas, and he is going to be an excellent addition to the team.  We had invited the whole staff to come have lunch to greet him and there were so many people there!  The spirit in the room was one of joy and laughter.  He reported that his first meetings yesterday were great meetings -- everyone has a voice, he reported.   I contrasted that to my first meeting which was so very different than that.

On my way from home Friday I heard the song "mended" by Matthew West (below).   Every time I have heard the song in the past I had thought of individual people and how when we have decided that either we or another person are "broken beyond repair" that God sees them as mended.

I confess to being brought to tears by the song when I realized that the song not only is about people, it is about situations, it is about organizations, agencies, families, relationships... anything that is broken.  

A year ago (and I'm making myself cry again) I travelled across the country believing that I was obeying God.  I left my friends, a job I loved and the people in it, my grandchildren and most of my children, and a church that I was very involved in.  I had my husband and two children who had moved with me to this unknown place.   And when I got here, all I saw was broken, too far gone, damaged goods, a wounded place.  I wondered what God was thinking and if maybe I hadn't been obeying Him and following my own desires.  Those were such difficult days.

But the beauty of it all is that God didn't see things the way I did.  Way back then, in those first few weeks of 2016, he saw last Friday.   He saw yesterday's lunch.  He saw things as they would become.

So let me remind you today, if you are looking at something in your life that seems like it may never turn around, God isn't seeing it as it is today.   He is seeing it at some point in the future when it is what He knows it can be ..... Mended.