Shiny new car feeling

I recently crashed my car, into a silly little wooden post in a car park. And I've lived with the dent and the associated shame (yes, careless driver shame) for about 5 months. But finally this week I decided to have it 'dealt with'.... professionally. My little silver motor arrived back in near perfect condition. In fact, it had additional dents ironed out, so it's much better than prior to the actual traumatic event.

High fives all round.

But I had to pay someone to fix it. On my own, I would have made it worse. I did try to fix my grandmother's broken keyboard once - with fimo. I was actually responsible for breaking it - i dropped it the day before Christmas.... and I don't think she ever noticed that there was some squidgy black substance around the end of the casing.

Restoration is a bit of a theme in the Bible. Nehemiah weeps over his city, that the walls have been destroyed and is so moved to do something about it. Restored walls - that beautiful picture of being built up again. And relationships, and people, constantly we read about hurt and anger and suffering and brokenness. And it's this mess that God steps into and restores. God, our creator and designer, is also our restorer.

Last week a few of us got together and prayed for an end to violence against women across the world. Restored is a new alliance in the UK which seeks to bring a biblical perspective of, and to equip the church to respond to gender based violence. And the church do need to address this issue, to talk about it, because violence, whether it's physical, or pyschological, of financial, or verbal or sexual... is not how God intended his world to be. It happens behind closed doors and we might not even know it's happening. It might even happening in our churches and perhaps we'd prefer not to talk about it. But I think it is time for the church to do something. Exactly because our God cares deeply for restored relationships, because he knows about the brokenness and the hurt and the suffering in our beaten up world.

So we prayed, and actually, it was hard. Really really emotionally difficult to read the stories of women and young girls in the DRC who have been gang raped and left for dead, physically abused to the point where they know longer feel they are a woman was just heartbreaking. In this immense and brutal darkness, there are a few glimmers of hope, or reconstructive surgery, of healing both spiritual and physical. Read The Times online for the story of Panzi hospital.

I mentioned Restored in an earlier blog, their official launch is on 26th June - if you want to find out more you might be interested in their launch event. The Bringing Hope conference, organised by Faith and Freedom is in Colchester on 26 June.

I'd encourage you to go along if you're interested in knowing what the church can do about this issue. Or if you've been affected, then please do seek support. Contact the National Domestic Violence helpline. Restoring relationships is not a one-sided thing: restoration requires both victim and perpetrator to learn to live in a pattern that doesn't repeat these actions and break out of the cycle.

We all need someone to help us with our mess, our brokenness. We just can't do it on our own. As a church, we need to start talking about these things and to support those experiencing emotional, or physical harm. And as we do this, we start to bring restoration to our families, to our church, to our towns and cities. God speaks in Jeremiah 31: I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving kindness. I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt.

How awesome that we can be part of bringing a little bit of heaven to earth, with God's help.