Restoring Throw-Aways

Restoring Throw-Aways
Staff Writer

Did you ever find someone’s trash that turned into your treasure? I have. More times than I can count. My latest “find” was a neat little bookshelf. It was left for the trash heap inside the chute room of my apartment building. With a little sanding, a bit of priming, and a rich overcoat of espresso brown paint, a bookshelf that was apparently useless to someone else became very useful to me. It’s now the new home of my DVD collection!

Earlier this year I encountered a fellow resident in my complex sitting in the elevator lobby. He had an interesting and somewhat attractive floral vase in his hands. I asked him what he planned to do with the item. He replied that he was just waiting to give it away to anybody who wanted it. I gladly took it off of his hands and brought it to my apartment. I washed away the tobacco smell from the silk flowers. It had spots and surface scratches that seriously diminished its original beauty, so I proceeded to enhanced the surface of the vase with multiple layers of earth tone colors. It needed a “fresh coat of paint” as it were to restore it to something appealing to the eye. I had the joy of restoring the beauty an item that had become marred over time. In its place emerged a gorgeous centerpiece that graces my main living area.

These two occasions have something special in common. While I was restoring each item I got to thinking about the way in which God restores us. Ever notice how Jesus consistently reached out to the “throw away people” of His day? Prostitutes, thieves, rebels, and more. People that upstanding society had thrown away. People who had been disowned by their families and rejected by their peers. People who had a street value of next to nothing. Yet look how the Lord quietly worked His way into their lives, then their hearts, then their souls. By the time the Great Restorer was done with them, they had become honest, pure, productive, whole people. Like the old Bill Gaither tune , “The King Is Coming” says,

Happy faces line the hallways, those whose lives have been redeemed.Broken homes that He has mended, those from prison He has freed.Little children and the aged, hand in hand stand all aglow,Who were crippled, broken, ruined, clad in garments white as snow.

How do I know this is true? Because I’m one of the throw-aways whom Christ redeemed! I looked OK on the outside, but was nothing but marred and broken on the inside. I had no real friends, and felt so lonesome I could cry. Then I met the Savior, and let Him have what was left of the mess I’d made of my life. And just as I patiently and skillfully restored the throw away bookshelf and unwanted vase, Jesus went to work restoring me to a person of beauty. He changed my heart, clearing away all the nicks and scratches. Then He applied an undercoat of love, and finished the job with an overcoat of grace. Now my sad face has become bright with hope and joy! My life is truly useful in His hands. He’s taken me to places I never would have dreamed I’d go.

If you feel like a throw-away, don’t despair. There’s hope for you, just like there was for me! If you place your life back into the hands of your Maker, He’ll take it from there. He’s an expert at this kind of thing. He’s been at it for quite some time now. So you can trust Him to restore you to the great human being you were always meant to be!