Restoration

I was born in Porth, a Welsh mining town in the Rhondda valley, and spent many happy school holidays playing on the mountainside alongside the coal tips, getting into mischief with brother and cousins. The area was filthy from the all-pervading coal dust. On a recent visit to the town, I was gobsmacked to see a heron standing alongside the river which ran down the valley through the town and even saw the bed of the river through clear water.  A heron, in the river Rhondda! That means that there must be fish - in the river Rhondda!! I was transfixed. My memories of the river in the 1950s was of a flow of black soup carrying the runoff from the coal mines; what a change!
 
In 1833 these valleys were described as the ‘Alps of Glamorgan’ and an area ‘distinguished for its picturesque grandeur and rich beauty of its scenery.’ Coal was subsequently found, and so, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, extracted in vast quantities by a population of miners and their families who migrated to the area.  It was good quality coal exported worldwide which powered our navies that enforced British international power. All this came at a cost, socially, with miners ground down by unfair work practices which killed and maimed many, and a landscape scarred with coal tips, air thick with coal dust, and life squeezed out of the overburdened river Rhondda.
 
Would the area ever recover from such damage? It has. This healing process has taken place following the cessation of mining and planting schemes on the mountainsides which, whilst costly in terms of labour and loss of income, has led to the restoration of a renewed beauty and utility.
 
David the Psalmist, having sinned and become polluted following the Bathsheba affair, came back to God in repentance and humbly prayed in Psalm 51 for a ‘pure heart’ and the restoration of a ‘steadfast spirit’ and the ‘renewal of joy’ in God’s salvation.
 
The Christian message is unique in that it offers not only forgiveness but redemption. Christ’s ministry as a servant on earth included that of healing, which encapsulates a larger message of restoring damaged people to their original design - which is to be healthy. This was a costly exercise requiring the Son of God to live amongst us and die for us. His sacrifice has given us restoration which will be fully realised on His return, bringing a new heaven and a new earth.
 
What a hope - what a redeemer!