What happens when things do not go your way? How many times would you like to trade in your life for someone elses? Kind of like those game shows on TV,where you can buy a vowel, or pick any case you want,and it might be the one with the huge amount of money in it. i"ll trade this for that.Wouldn't it be great if we could say" I'll take Bill Gates life please,or maybe Oprah,anyone else's out there,but your own.Would things be better? Maybe for a while,but then we would realize they have their own set of issues and worries.

I think of a boy who lived with us when he was small.His life was not easy before he came to us,He and his siblings had been placed in so many different foster homes,they lost track of where they had been.They also lost track of their belongings and showed up at my house each holding a brown paper bag holding some items of clothing and a doll or two.

Thats it,to be on this earth 7 years and this is what you have.All your belongings in a little bag sitting on your lap,while the tears flow from your eyes because you don't know where you are,who these people are,and where you are going next. You wonder if anyone loves you,why is this happening and will you ever have a home?You can bet if he had a choice of trading in his little life,he would have jumped at the chance.

Even now as an adult,I can bet he has wished for a better life.One like the kid down the street.Who has had the same boring parents all his life,The same bedspread,and curtains for years,the same address,the things that this kid thinks is boring and mundane.Im sure each one would look at the others lives and wish for some of it.

But the thing we don't realize is that although our lives are not always wonderful,there have been things that we had wished had not happened.There are some of us,who think we got the short end of the stick so to speak.We look at others and think "God must love them more.their live has been so much easier".But we do not know half of what these people have gone through.Even those we call close friends.We know them,but we do not know every detail of their entire lives.And they do not know about ours.

I love the verse Joel 2:25 'I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten-- the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm-- my great army that I sent among you.

What this means is no matter what your life was like as a child .Or even the past few years.He will replace those lost years.When we think of the damage Locust can do,they come in like a dark cloud,eating everything in sight.They fly out leaving behind fields that were once green and full of life.That are now mowed down,damaged and destroyed.But the wonderful thing is,after some time.Once the rain has fallen and the sun has come out.Slowly but surely the new growth starts to poke thru the earth,each day growing a little greener and a little taller.Until one day the field is full of tall lush new growth blowing in the breeze.It is restored.It is better than ever before.

That is what Jesus can do for us.Even those lives that seem so painful,the ones that it is a miracle we have grown up to become functioning adults.He can and will restore what the locust have eaten.But we have to let him.We need to go to him and ask and allow him to work.We cannot do it on our own.So today,you can choose to allow Him to begin to work,and give you the wonderful life you never had.Or you can stay right where you are,the damaged,beaten down field,that eventually will cease to exist,it will become barren wasteland empty and full of dirt.Let him restore you.You will be amazed what He can do.

Blessings
Dee