Oceans in the Desert

Kathi Pelton

I recently went through a six month experience of healing and spiritual restoration after experiencing a traumatic situation. Though this article is not about the trauma or the situation, it is about an amazing truth that came out of this very painful time. 

Throughout the months of wrestling and healing I noticed that I would often wake up at the exact same time: 6:13 am. While no one else would find those numbers significant, for me they were because I was born on June 13th (6/13). 

At first it was just something that I noticed but paid little attention to. But when it continued to happen I began to think that maybe God wanted to say something to me about my birth or about my life. 

Then one day as I woke up once again seeing the time 6:13 I heard these words, 

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…” Jeremiah 1:5 (a)

With those words a revelation came that took my breath away. I saw God’s original plan for each one of us and how beautifully unique and perfect it was. Then I saw myself in my physically unformed state and how even then I was fully formed in God’s eyes and heart. Who I was and who he created me to be (and who I will fully be in my glorified body one day) was perfect and beautiful to him. 

Then I saw him put me into my mother’s womb and as I grew physically, small imperfections were occurring. Then I was born— into an imperfect world to imperfect parents— and little by little “who he knew me to be before I was formed” was altered and redefined by life experiences, by sin, by traumas and by “Phileo” love (note: agape love is God’s unconditional love and phileo love is human conditional love).

God was showing me that he was using the crushing that I was experiencing to heal a deep wound within my soul that had altered me from who he created me to be. It was a wound that I was not consciously aware of because it had become so familiar that it had merged with my identity. 

To me, it was just part of who I am.

As I walked out this journey of healing I realized that he was restoring a part of me to the “me” that he knew before I was ever physically formed. And then I realized that his redemptive work in each one of us was restoring us to his original and unique identity that he created us to be. This revelation helped me to allow the Lord to go to the very root of the wound that altered a part of my identity during my formative years. 

We are not who we think ourselves to be! But, we are being restored to who he knows us to be as we allow his Spirit to redeem us. 

The final part of the revelation was that I saw each one of us after we leave our physical bodies being fully restored to “who he knew us to be before we were formed!” This may be obvious to some of you but it was like a trumpet blast of hope and expectation for me. 

I am being restored now but will be fully restored and whole when I leave this body. I will finally be who he knows me and created me to be! And so will you. 

Today, receive his words over your life,

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…”

He hasn’t forgotten who you are and it is how he knows you— even now.

What you know of yourself is an altered version of a perfect and uniquely beautiful you. But he is restoring parts of you that you didn’t know existed. 

Sometimes it is in the crushing that true and pure oil is produced so do not resist because he may just be crushing the outer layer to allow the pure “you” to come alive and be restored. 

“Lord, we invite you to redeem your original plan and identity that you created us in even before we were in our mother’s womb. Restore and bring forth who you created us to be before the foundations of the world existed. Thank you for your agape love that never stops making all things new.”

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