"But he (Samson) called upon the Lord, saying: O Lord God, remember me, and restore to me now my former strength..." (Judges 16:28, Douay-Rheims Bible (Amplification mine)) Most Christians know the story of Samson. It is often the first story you learn as a youth when they are trying to teach you the evil of sexual immorality. We all know the infamous Delilah and the part she played in the evil ordeal of Samson. But the story of Samson is not a tragedy, it is a story of restoration. Even in literature, it is not the beginning or the middle of a story that determines its genre; but its ending! How can you determine what your story is when you have not seen the ending. In life nobody has the right to tell you what the story of your life is until they have seen the end. Good news is God has promised that the ending of your story will be great! It doesn't matter what the beginning or the middle of a story is, it is the ending that matters most..
The reason many people think Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a beautiful story about love is because they didn't know that the initial title of that play was "The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet". Men can say what they think, or what they feel; but it is God that has the final say. When Samson lost his power, he became an object of caricature. His enemies laughed at him and used him for sport. Women told their little children stories about the once strong man who was now a pepper grinder for the Philistines. But Samson never gave up. You can not experience restoration if you have given up. The story of Samson teaches us that it takes more than physical strength to receive your restoration. Even when his physical strength was gone; his mental strength was intact. He was a strong believer. Little wonder the Bible called him a man of faith! (Hebrews 11:32)
It is not yet over until you decide it is over. Whatever life has taken from you, it is your time to stand up and demand it back. Samson got his strength restored because he never gave up, he never quit; he never stopped believing that he could do it. Even when he lost his strength, he never lost his mission and purpose in life. His mission was to destroy the Philistines, and even at his lowest of low when his strength was gone and he was already counted as a failure; he held on to that mission. He asked God to give him a second chance to fulfill his mission, and God did!