He Gives Back the Years

“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.” — Joel 2:25 (ESV)

I know what locust-eaten years look like. Mine were eaten by addiction. Years I wasn’t present. Years my children were growing up without the mother they deserved. When God brought me out, I looked at all that lost time and wondered if anything could ever give it back.

But listen to what God actually promises. He doesn’t only forgive the past — He restores it. Not just the days ahead, but the years behind. “I will restore to you the years.” The very ones that were eaten.

And He’s done it in my own life. God has restored my relationship with my oldest son. He’s restored my middle child. My daughter’s chapter is still in the waiting — but I know that I know that I know He’ll restore that one too, in His timing. And I’m at peace in the waiting, because the same God who gave back the years He already has won’t stop halfway.

Friend, if you’re grieving the years you lost — to addiction, to a bad relationship, to rebellion, to anything that ran your life into the ground — hear me: those years are not beyond God’s reach. He specializes in turning graveyards into gardens and ashes into beauty. You don’t get the years back by earning them. You get them back because redemption is who He is.

Stop writing yourself off. The story doesn’t end with what was taken. It ends with what God gives back.

Lord, thank You for being the God who gives back the years. I trust You with the ones still being written — and the one I’m still waiting on. Restore what only You can. In Jesus’ name, Amen.