It is an amazing story of intentional reconciliation.
One that blesses and encourages me.
A personal decision made, a breach of trust, though made by one, thrust them both into an unwanted and harsh spotlight.
They went through a firestorm of pain and heartache.
They lived and suffered through the challenges, the abandonment, the loss and the isolation.
People who had once professed to love them, now reviled them, scandalized their names.
The promise of the first few verses of Isaiah 43 were probably a hollow and unproven promise from their perspective.
They did not hate, but how could they truly love anyone who had mishandled them so spitefully?
Their hearts were broken.
Yet, in spite of the debris from that dark past, they stepped over all of it to begin building toward a new future, a fresh future fueled by faith, a future that beckoned to them with the finger of hope and promise.
They did not forget about yesterday.
They chose to leave it to God and history.
Some years later, change intervened, God decreed and man responded.
Forgiveness and reconciliation.
Sweet promises from Faithful God.

“I am with you, always.”
“Trust me in the storm and through the storm.”
“My plans for you cannot be thwarted by your foolish decisions
or man-constructed weapons of vengeance.”
“Return to me and I will return to you.”

God whispers in the storm and the darkness becomes light.
An amazing story of reconciliation, one that gives me hope for me and everyone who believes that God can still make all things new.

“The high places I will bring down.”