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Viewpoint from Territorial Envoy Ali James 12/12/2025
 Territorial Envoy Ali James
Great Yarmouth Salvation Army
Restoration
I don’t know about you, but when we moved to Great Yarmouth three years ago, I was delighted to hear that the Winter Gardens were going to be restored. Such a beautiful building design, and I can only imagine how stunning it would have been in its heyday. Things have taken quite some time to get going, and I must admit I shared others’ concerns that if the reparations didn’t start soon, it might prove too late. Yet, the very idea of restoration speaks to something deep within us—a longing to see what was broken made whole again
Through the Christmas story, we are reminded of the importance of restoration—not just of buildings, but of lives, relationships, and hearts. This season brings peace, hope, light, and reconciliation through God’s coming to earth in the form of the Christ child. It is a time when we find ourselves yearning for one more conversation with those we have lost—whether through death, distance, or painful disagreements that have created chasms too wide to cross. Christmas whispers that those gaps can be bridged, that healing is possible
The reconciliation of humankind, God’s wonderful creation, to God the Creator is at the heart of this season. It is not simply about nostalgia or sentimentality; it is about a divine promise that brokenness does not have the final word. As the Christ child was born in lowly circumstances, so too restoration often begins in humble places—in quiet acts of forgiveness, in small steps toward peace, in the courage to reach out again
Just as the Winter Gardens will one day stand renewed, so too can our lives reflect the beauty of restoration. This Christmas, may we embrace that hope: that what seems lost can be found, what feels shattered can be mended, and what appears beyond repair can be made whole through the love that entered the world in Bethlehem
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