Restoration

Over the past few months, my friends and I have embarked on an epic adventure of discipleship and surfboard shaping with 6 young men. We meet every Saturday after Christian Surfers Carlsbad from 2-5pm. We have a time of bible study and discussion as we slowly read through the book of Mark and peer into the life of Jesus. We then get into shaping, wrestling, and other grommet antics. At “Launchpad Shapes” we are teaching these six 12–14-year-old men ding repair, how to shape a bodysurfing hand plane, and how to shape and glass their own surfboard. Connecting concepts of the shaping process to biblical themes. Then, we will take the groms on an epic camping surf trip up the coast to Big Sur. It has been amazing to see the word of God begin to transform these young men as their faith in Jesus grows stronger. “You will restore me to even greater honor and comfort me once again.” Psalms 71:21. One biblical theme that we taught to the groms was restoration and how the Lord restores us. To model this theme – I found a 6’ Robert August with a channeled bottom and glassed in twins and a 5’7 Town & Country thruster on Facebook Marketplace. These boards were classic; airbrushed and told a story with old stickers all over them. We thought this would be a good way to teach them about the history of surfboards and how we are being restored to relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins (dings). Restoring old boards is harder than I thought. Every time we fixed a ding, we found another.

Much like how we find ourselves in trying to deal with the areas of brokenness in our life – we continue to find sins and struggles that we need to rely on Jesus to heal. The Robert August is currently in our shed with a reshaped foam block on the tail and a fin that needs to be glassed on again. I thought that the Town & Country was finally ready to go surf Oceanside Pier until I noticed a delamination on the deck. I set it back in the shed and took out my daily driver. These classic boards still await surfing the Living Water once again. This journey of surfboard restoration made me realize – I am not very good at restoring things. I get impatient and want to move on when things get too complex. I am grateful that God is way more capable, patient, faithful, and loving to deliver on his promise to restore us to even greater honor. He will not give up on us when he sees that we are covered in dings, sins, addictions, and broken. God sees what we could be – even more beautiful than ever before – and patiently transforms us into the image of his son Jesus.

“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 2Corinthians 3:18

Photo by: Riley Jaggi

Marco is currently a chapter leader for CS Carlsbad. He became plugged in to Christian Surfers, when he stumbled onto the Panama Surf and Serve trip 2 years ago. Ever since, he has become hooked on Christian Surfers and sharing the word of Jesus with all those he meets.