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“The enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were rebuilding a Temple to the Lord, the God of Israel…Then the local residents tried to discourage and frighten the people of Judah to keep them from their work.”  Ezra 4:1,4 (NLT)

Have you ever been a part of a natural disaster team?

Several years ago, my husband traveled to South America to help rebuild a town after a sudden earthquake had caused destruction. The town lay in ruins, and many teams were sent out over many years to rebuild piece by piece. He said it was very difficult work. He was part of one of the earliest teams to arrive, and they had a hard time seeing the future of this town because there was so much rubble and so many scattered parts everywhere. Team after team did endure and slowly, but surely, the town was rebuilt. If you were to go today, you would spot a functioning town  and you would be hard pressed to recognize remnants from the earthquake.

Rebuilding after a natural disaster is difficult, but rebuilding after walking through an unnatural disaster is just as difficult. Unnatural disasters referring to betrayal, trauma, abuse, etc. Those hurts that were never meant to be a part of our relationships, like the storms that never meant to be a part of our physical world.

After an unnatural disaster attacks your life, it takes time to heal and rebuild, bleed out and scar up. There may be several teams that stand in the gap-maybe counselors and neighbors when the first wave hits, but as time went on, co-workers, close friends, or maybe new counselors have stepped in to help repair the next layer. Healing takes a village, time, and commitment to the process and to the result.

We see that in scripture as we watch the captives return to Judah and begin to rebuild.

After the Israelites were taken captive in 586 B.C. by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the temple, the city, and the walls of Jerusalem were set on fire, torn down, and completely demolished. After many years of captivity, the Persian king, King Cyrus, allowed some of the Jewish people to go back, assess the damage, and begin to rebuild. This was not an easy task. It took a total of 70 years for the temple alone to be completed.

Oh, the joy that engulfed them, and oh, the pain that surrounded them as they began to move back to their homeland and rebuild.

But first, the old rubble had to be cleared out. They had to clean out, build up, and, then scripture tells us, fight their enemies. What? Fight enemies? This was not supposed to be a part of the rebuilding process. Yet it was because they had people who did not want them to be successful in the rebuilding process. Ezra tells us their enemies continued to try to “discourage and frighten them.”

Isn’t that just like us? Our lives may have had a category 5 hurricane hit, and we are trying our best to clear out the rubble, but we have enemies that try to discourage and frighten us. There are those who want to keep us where we are because it allows them to stay the same. Then we have real enemies – people in our lives who do not want the best for us or only want their own way, and they will try to take us down any way they can. On top of that, we are waging a spiritual war, and it can be hard to keep our eyes on Jesus instead of the rubble, the tools, or the new materials.

Rebuilding is hard. It is exhausting and overwhelming and sometimes seems impossible. So many give up and stay in the rubble. Ezra and Nehemiah give us a blueprint of how to rebuild our lives.

We have to examine our hearts. If we have been through an unnatural disaster, are we ready to rebuild? Are we waiting for someone to free us so we can begin to rebuild? Or are we lying  in the rubble waiting for a sign or the energy or a blueprint?

Where do we even begin?

The good news-we don’t have to do this alone.

For now, think about where you are? Have you been hit by a storm? Are you clearing out? Have you started rebuilding? Are you sitting on a stone hoping help will come?

The thing is, God will meet us wherever our starting point is! No judgment – just a hand reaching out helping us to stand again and wipe the dirt off.

We’ll pick up here next week.

“Father, help my sweet sisters to know Your arm is strong enough and long enough to reach us wherever we are, and You love us enough that You won’t leave us in the dirt.”

For His Glory

Terrie Tollerson (www.TerrieTollerson.com)
TRBC Women’s Life