by Larisa Lambert Mills

I go back to it time and again. It’s become a reliable guide and encouragement through my day-to-day work and the way my relationship with the Lord connects with that work. It’s real. And relatable.

Here is a blessing from it for you:

“… If we would do what he told us to do, he would take care of our kids and every other concern we had. He would answer when we called. He would satisfy our needs. He would strengthen and enlighten us. He would be our rearguard, protecting our children from harm!

With our anxieties put to rest, Michele and I would concentrate even more fully on the mandate in Isaiah 58. The Message’s translation of verse 12 really connected with me because of my own life experiences before and after I came to know Christ:

‘You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.’

Our new ministry would offer a process through which people, like me, who had been broken, could experience real transformation. It would take the rubble of their lives and through God’s grace and power, restore, rebuild and renovate them!”

This excerpt is from the Promised Land or Bust! chapter of The YES Journey, by Bill and Michele Heintz, the co-founders of The Foundry Ministries. It speaks beautifully of the faith and promise the Lord gave them as they came to Bessemer, Alabama to reshape lives in 1996.

The NIV version says in these same verses that when this work is accomplished:

“ … you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets and Dwellings.”

Because of these verses, which we read in a planning meeting just a few days ago, I think of Pastor Bill as The Repairer. At The Foundry, it’s what we do. It is our focus and as a ministry and as individual people we are The Repairers. Are you a Repairer, too? Do you want to be a Repairer? Please share your comments about your own quest and hope to be a Repairer or how God used a Repairer to help you rebuild and renovate your own life.

To get your copy of The YES Journey: A Story of Starting Where You Are and Living Your Purpose, click here https://amzn.to/2mTutRS.