Psalm 60
Last year as we studied Israel crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land, Pastor Rick had us write a word on a rock to make memorial stones for our lives. My rock says “Restored” and it lives on my mantle as a regular reminder that the Lord does restore.
Psalm 60:1-3 says: 
“O God, You have cast us off;
You have broken us down;
You have been displeased;
Oh, restore us again!
2 You have made the earth tremble;
You have broken it;
Heal its breaches, for it is shaking.
3 You have shown Your people hard things;” 
He has shown me hard things.
I have always struggled with self-worth and belonging and several years ago I reached a breaking point. I lived in a house filled with love. My family loved me. I was their person, and they were my people. I belonged there but my old wounds were ripped open and festering. I felt wholly unloved, unworthy, unwanted, cast off, and broken down to my very core. I couldn’t hold myself together anymore. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t see the good around me because of the hurt inside me.
I sat with my Bible and sobbed to the Lord. I knew I was robbing myself and my family of good things because I was so focused on the past, but I was stuck. I always go to Psalm 139 when I need the Lord to remind me of who I am, and that day He showed me something new. 
“Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.”
Psalm 139:16 tells me that I was created on purpose and the Lord planned my days for me before I was ever born. I am not an accident. 
I belong to Him. 
With these words, He healed my broken heart. When I read Psalm 60:7, “Gilead is Mine, and Manasseh is Mine…”, I hear a whisper in my soul: “Amanda is Mine.”
I have been restored.
 
By: Amanda Roper