I have heard Joel 2:25 before...

"I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten"

That's only the first part of the verse but that's where my focus is right now. I have heard this several times lately and I've wondered where it was and what it was meaning. Well, I found it. And I have my own translation of the meaning. God will restore what was lost. Plain and simple. Now, I can apply it to myself.

I feel like I have lost many years to pain, grief, pride, impurity, selfishness and foolishness. It's apparent that God promises to restore that time when I surrender my life and will to him. So, here I am. Surrendering once more and in other areas that I have missed before. I want freedom and I want healing. That's the journey I've been on. It isn't easy but I'm seeing more and more that it's totally worth it. My marriage has lost several years of beauty and holiness as God has intended it. He's going to give us those years back just as he promises in this verse in Joel! I have failed to have sexual purity in my life for many more years and I have finally...FINALLY...admitted that and released the control that I thought I had over it and have asked God's forgiveness in that area of my life and have experienced true freedom from sexual impurity and am expecting the healing to follow. God is so cool! Finally, I am expecting physical healing. My neck has been hurting almost every day for the past 3 years. It holds me back from having life in my days sometimes. The past 5 days have been a good example of that. I cannot live like this forever. It HAS to get better. I cannot be the woman, wife and mother that God wants me to be with the physical restrictions that I have. So I'm going to fully rely on his healing in my body. I have no control over it. I never have (even if I thought I have from time to time). He will heal me and he will give me back the past 3 years that the locusts (chronic pain) has eaten. I'm going to expect this and look in great hopes of it. I need it! God is faithful and just. He has given me freedom and healing in so many areas and I look to him for this as well.