a letter to you, for keeps...

Dear you, 

Your eyes failed to ring in the new year and you faded quickly into deep sleep, but before you faded 2014 gently crept onto the movie reel of your heart and you reveled. You reveled, because 2014 was a year of torrential tears, breathtaking beauty, reckless abandonment and surprises that whisked your heart away. 

A year spent among your NOE abruptly came to a close at the end of May and you thought the goodbyes you had spent years saying were the worst, but you had no idea...Because, love, the more time you had spent at NOE, the more it had become home. The home that you spent years praying for, but you just didn't know that it existed some 2000 miles away. 

And while, it was sometimes hard to get up most days and find joy in hanging clothes, again, God reminded you that there was a need right where you were, that there is always a need right where you are. Even if it may be the last place you think you "should" be. 

Hard times fell upon your heart, because you had to relearn the inner workings of living stateside while loving your babies from afar, you had to be still and you had to relearn that as much as you love fixing, that there are things on this side of Heaven that you can't fix. Those people in your life, you love them; you don't fix them. Those problems that they are living in aren't something you can just take away and stow for safekeeping. But you can be there. You can sit with them. You can say the hard words that would have never ever been mentioned in the past. You can love them without fixing them and dear girl, that's something that you learned and you are still learning. 

But May, yes, it was a month of saying goodbyes, but God used something minor to bring about something beautiful. Most days...things were held inside and went unmentioned or were overlooked by the ones you were loving, but there was a voice among the silence that stood out. And it's been pretty steady since then…crazy to think how God can use the smallest of things to remind you of how loved you are, to remind you that He hears you. And crazy, beautiful to think that the familiar voice hasn't gone silent. It's still very much a part of your life. 

You finished your Masters. You ran a half marathon. 

You remember that day when the table of students you were sitting with started to pray…and then it all ended in a circle of seventeen hands with over eight voices rising up from the silence and praying over each other? That was a moment spent on holy ground, love. A moment that you can be certain came from Him and a moment that was given back to Him. 

…and when you joked about being an "angel" and writing a student who didn't have a sponsor to send him letters. You wrote a letter to him and the look of absolute joy on his face will be something forever engrained in your memory. Something so small made his eyes light up and a face that is often shadowed changed completely before your eyes. 

And then there were those conversations that took place upon your couch, in your own little house. Those moments when God somehow gave you the words to say and the grace to say them. Dear girl, cherish those moments and guard them for the years to come. 

Two Christmases full of joy and heartache was incredibly absent. Two Christmases spent among the ones that know you to your core, spent seeing life rebuilt and victory reclaimed. 

The dear boy kept awake one morning that ended up in church on a random Sunday. Holy ground, yet again.

And sitting on your grandfather's bed and reading him the words you sent him in October…moments spent on holy ground, my love. 

All this to say to you that 2014 was a year when God did something in you, just like years past. All this to say that He let you stand and sit on holy ground and experience love to the absolute fullest. 

All this to say, that 2014 was a year when you realized that the can'ts and shoulds don't really need to guide you, because your Maker is one of whimsy, of reckless abandon, amazing grace and He delights in your joy. 

He delights in your joy. DO you hear that?

You said goodbye, but He brought you back. 

Hold these moments close to your heart, child, and remember that this is just the beginning. The Lord will accomplish His purpose for you, because His word does not return empty.