Restore What We Return: Returning to God With Our Whole Hearts
I slipped on my headphones as the chatter around me increased. I was hoping to tune out the noise in my shared office space and focus on the work in front of me. Instead, it was a lyric from an unknown song that captured my attention:
You will restore what we return to You.
I had no idea how this verse would soon echo through my brain. And I couldn’t have guessed what God was asking of me.
It was my favorite car.
He drove a red Acura Integra. When I saw him pull into the parking lot I may have strategically delayed my exit from my own car, timing it so we walked into the building together. After all, I did need to ask someone for directions!
He likes to say I stalked him. I like to remind him that he asked me to study together. And that I was the only one of us who got an “A” in that Physics course. ;)
I was home for the summer, and we were together only two months before I returned to college, but that was all it took. “I can see myself marrying him,” I confided to my sister before I left town. Six years younger than me, I knew she wouldn’t judge my words. To her I could speak freely.
It’s now been 26 years since that random July morning when I first spotted his car. Twenty-six years, one big wedding, two sons, two cats, three dogs, and five houses. Oh … and one diagnosis I hadn’t realized would be joining us.
You will restore what we return to You.
In good times and in bad. In sickness and in health.
Like all married couples, we’ve endured our share of stress over the years: a struggle with infertility, challenging relationships with extended family, job layoffs, and a catastrophic hurricane quickly come to mind. And although I wouldn’t have chosen any of those struggles, I can see they’ve made us stronger.
But over ten years ago, we somehow found ourselves waist deep in the turbulent waters of a new storm. A storm that developed and intensified slowly, right in front of me, though I was somehow unaware. In hindsight, it’s odd that I couldn’t see it, as my current vantage point easily reveals its presence years before a doctor named it. And this storm? Well it doesn’t really feel like we’re stronger because of it. Instead, as it bears down on us whenever and however it chooses, we typically just feel more battered.
You will restore what we return to You.
Tayler Crabb, @taylercrabb.
Fierce winds and crushing waves.
I sat on the cold bathroom floor, the screen of my phone barely visible through my tears. It didn’t matter. I knew what the text said. I had typed and erased and retyped the words three times, trying to find a better way, a nicer way, to say what was in my heart. I’d flirted some with these feelings in the past, but I’d been wrestling with them for weeks. I didn’t want to claim them. I was embarrassed and ashamed of them. But despite great effort, I couldn’t change them. Unable to deny them any longer, I gave in to my quiet sobs and hit send, once again sharing my deepest feelings with my sister: “Sometimes being married to him is the hardest part of my life.”
You will restore what we return to You.
Laying it down.
I’ve spent years telling myself it doesn’t matter. That I love my husband and would say “I do” all over again. That it’s his diagnosis, not mine, so I have no place to be upset. As a mother and healthcare provider, I conclude God has simply called me to a life of caring for others, and this is no different. So I whisper “not my will, but Yours,” and try to embrace this role.
And of course I love my husband and would marry him all over again. And obviously he did not choose this path. But as I sat on the bathroom floor that day, I slowly considered that maybe it wasn’t so simple. And perhaps my feelings did matter after all.
Maybe acknowledging that this situation is sometimes quite hard, is okay. And the fact that my name is not in the medical chart doesn’t actually mean I’m not affected. Perhaps it’s okay to admit that surrendering the storybook picture I once painted for my marriage is sometimes difficult. That at times I want to scream and kick as I angrily question God’s ways. And maybe it’s okay that sometimes, as I whisper “Thy will be done,” I also pray God helps my heart catch up with my words.
You will restore what we return to You.
This storm…
It shows up uninvited, infuriating me.
Some days it demands all I have, completely draining me.
It tells me I don’t know how to love my husband, absolutely crushing me.
This storm breaks my husband’s spirit, and then it targets my heart as it comes for me.
You will restore what we return to You.
In many ways, this storm has broken my heart. It’s in a thousand pieces, scattered across the floor.
He will restore what I return to Him.
But slowly, as this song lyric chased me, I began to understand what God was asking of me.
He will restore what I return to Him.
He wants my heart. My very broken heart. He’s asking me to gather each and every splintered fragment of my heart and place them all in His hands.
The part that angrily grasps at the fairytale marriage it envisioned long ago.
The parts that feel helpless and incompetent.
The part filled with sorrow as it watches her husband struggle.
The part that worries about the future.
The part that spies the seemingly easier relationships of others with envy.
The parts that feel lonely and disappointed.
The part that spends good days wondering how long they’ll last.
And the part that feels guilty and ashamed for all of these hard feelings.
He will restore what I return to Him.
Collecting all the pieces.
I walk to the front of the empty Adoration Chapel, bypassing the pews until I am standing directly before Jesus. Dropping to my knees, I close my eyes and see the shattered pieces of my heart tossed about the floor. I scrounge around, carefully collecting each and every fragment so I can place them all in His hands.
I think I understand now that He wants to put my heart back together. That ultimately I cannot weather this storm if my heart remains fractured. That only when my heart is once again whole will I be able to truly live out the role God has called me to within my marriage.
But then, then I hear Him call my name …
“Jen, you’re right that living through this storm may be easier when your heart is not broken. But that’s not why I’m asking for the pieces of your heart. And it's not so you can better fill a specific role. I want to put your heart back together because you are my beloved daughter. And because each time I see you suffering, My own heart aches along with you.”
Jen, I want to make your heart whole.
Place the pieces in My hands.
And I will restore what you return to Me.
Meet Jennifer Scheuermann
While living out her vocations of marriage, motherhood and health care provider, Jen is often found on the sidelines of a ball game, searching for shade while cheering on her sons. After finding herself on an Ignatian retreat that she hadn't realized would be silent, she encountered Jesus personally, and her world has not been the same since! She believes any household chore can be enjoyable with a podcast playing, but please don't ask her to work in the garden. An early riser, she sits with Jesus while it’s still dark and blogs about their conversations at earlyAMcoffeewithJesus.com. She considers her Instagram squares to be her stones of remembrance, and you can follow her daily faith journey at @earlyamcoffeewithjesus.