From what you wrote it would seem you are talking about application returning from background. Since you said you are not a native iOS developer, this is closer to minimizing a desktop application and then expand it again (all the threads are paused after some short time though). So yes, the application stays where you left it and nothing is reloaded.
Apple prepared a few methods usually located in application delegate class, for this case it would be - (void)applicationDidBecomeActive:(UIApplication *)application
. Once this gets called you will have to reload application state.
Also there used to be parameter in "plist" where you could enable/disabled permission for the application to enter background. If you do not allow it to enter background it will close and will be forced to restart, fixing your problem. This though is not the most elegant solution and it might not even be allowed anymore.