A year ago today I was in the upper room of the training center in Gainesville, Georgia trying to coax my excited mind into getting some sleep before our early morning wakeup call and drive to the airport. A year ago today I was getting ready to leave the US for 11 months and begin what I knew was a big step into becoming the missionary I dreamed of being for five years. So much happened this year on the field and in my faith. I think if I could sum it up in just one phrase it would be this:I thought I knew what love was.  

I thought I knew what it was to be loved by God. I thought I knew what it was to love God. Turns out it’s better. Turns out there's more.  

It’s taken me a month to write this post because honestly, I’m not sure how to explain. I’ve sat down to write it before because I felt I owed it to all of you who have so kindly and faithfully followed my journey this year, but the words were too hard to put together. How do I find the words that will show you what happened within me this year? How do I explain all the little pieces of tearful nights, inexpressible joy, all the things God so faithfully healed in me, all the ways God wrecked my heart by showing me His? How do I explain the smiles of the people I met and will likely never see again, and how do I explain their impact on me when I don’t even understand? How do I glorify God for what He did when I can’t explain it to myself? I’ve been hiding behind this for over a month – but God convicted me recently that I’m sometimes too quiet when it comes to testifying. Tonight, as I walked and looked at the stars and reflected on what my thoughts and feelings were this time last year, He told me to sit down and write. If I can’t ever put together the words to explain and understand what I've learned about love, how can I ever lead others into it the way I so deeply desire to? So, these are my raw thoughts. These are probably also going to be pretty vulnerable thoughts. This is me being obedient to my King and staying up as late as I have to for this to be written out, for myself and for you – but mostly for God. I hope it makes sense, but honestly if it doesn’t that’s ok with me.  

I guess the only place to start is the beginning – I hope y’all are buckled up for a potentially long post. Last July (2021) I met my squad for the first time in Georgia for training camp. Within the first day of being there, God spoke to me in worship as I sang out the words “Your love is a firm foundation” - He told me this wasn’t true in my heart. That this firmness, this stability in His love was what I kept feeling I was missing in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I knew God loved me, and I loved Him a whole lot. That’s why I was there. I mean, God’s love for us is one of the first mind-blowing revelations most people who have been touched by God cling to. I knew Gods love; I had been told of it and touched by it all my life. I had experienced His salvation, I had experienced His mercy, I had experienced Him holding and comforting me, I had stood in some really incredible moments with Him. I knew Gods love; I just didn’t live in it. I thought I knew what love was in general, but I failed to see that “God’s love” and “love” couldn’t be separate from one another. God IS love. He defines it, He made it.  

In this first worship set God showed me that living outside of His love had caused me to operate in fear and striving to be loved, and I hated it. I hated the insecurity that still circled in my mind after YEARS of growing in confidence in Christ. I couldn’t stand the attention-seeking thoughts and patterns in my life that I felt I had to constantly reign in. I was tired of holding onto hurt from words and actions from people I loved that I had internalized instead of forgiving. I was sick of the shame I couldn’t get rid of from things I had chosen for the sake of love. When God told me I didn’t have a firm foundation in His love I was relieved. I didn’t want whatever it was I had; His word freed me to see that I had constructed a throne in my heart out of fools gold. We can never be satisfied with anything but the real stuff dwelling in us. I begged Holy Spirit to rip out whatever foundation was in me and start over. 

This year has been just that; God faithfully pulled out what I thought about myself, about the world, about community, and about Him. He healed parts of me and my life I didn’t know needed healing; and when my heart was bare and bleeding and vulnerable He asked me to hand it to Him and to every person I came in contact with. There were a lot of times that He would do this and I would feel almost overcome by fear or a desire to run away. I think most people know the nervousness of stepping out into love and putting yourself in a position where you can be hurt by rejection. We have to decide if it’s worth it to potentially be heartbroken. There were a lot of days I felt like that, except I was overwhelmed knowing that if God broke my heart I would actually be crushed. I knew that it wouldn’t just be the teenage “my life is over” momentary crisis – it would be a real deal my life is over crisis. There were days I literally felt like I was going to die if I gave the fullness of my heart to Him – but then again, I didn’t want to live in just the shadow of His love anymore. I couldn’t stand being on the brink of fullness, on the edge of true communion with my Maker – I’d already accepted Him and the cost of following Him, but I had to have the fullness of Him. And so day after day after day I had to choose not to run away but to hand myself over.  

If you’re anything like me you’re probably tired of me dancing around what happened and wanting to actually read what that looked like tangibly. I’m just going to trust that whatever moments God brings to mind right now are the ones I need to share. It may not paint a full picture of what I’ve tried to explain happened, but it will paint some kind of picture.  

During our first month in Costa Rica, God began this process in full force by exposing some of the bigger moments of pain in my life and showing me in more depth how He had been present. One day my team was leading a women's event and had begun an activity where we asked God to remind us of a moment of deep loneliness and pain, and then ask Jesus to reveal where He had been in that moment. As I sat with God, He took me to my freshman year of college, to a time that I was almost overcome with anxiety and depression. I saw myself lying in my bed weeping over the chaos going on in my mind, it was a night of darkness as the enemy kept telling me my life wasn’t worth it anymore. I knew he was wrong; I knew my family was worth it, my friends were worth it, my God was worth it – but still his voice just kept ringing in my ear. Even before God brought this memory up that day, I had recognized and testified to some that the Holy Spirit had been with me that night and given me strength to eventually cast out the voice of the enemy and dwell on hope. I had found freedom from my anxiety and depression years before this day in Costa Rica, but when I saw it again I was overcome by shame and sadness. When I asked God why He wanted me to see this, I wanted to run away and push it back to the corner of my mind where I had stashed it all this time. But as I looked back at myself, I saw Gods love for me. I saw my Abba – my Father – sitting on my bed with my head in His lap, I saw my Beloved Jesus holding my hand, I saw the precious Holy Spirit laying over me like a blanket holding me safe in love. I saw the Trinity holding me tight in my darkest night and weeping over the pain I was experiencing. His tears pierced me; I knew God had been with me, but He WEPT over me. He was heartbroken for me even though He knew the victory that would come far better than I did. He wasn’t just watching me struggle waiting for me to get over myself and see that He had already won the war against the enemy,