11.

Chelsea,

After nearly twenty-four hours of dizzying travel, I'm home. 

I've been away nearly six months and my heart's about to lunge out of my chest with joy to be back where I belong. 

It doesn't make sense. Life is not comfortable here. 

But, somehow, it's this place that makes me come alive -- that makes me desperate for His Presence, always looking for His love, constantly aware of His great love. 

So there's a lot of distance between here & there & sometimes it can feel overwhelming. How do you say goodbye to your family for the long years? How do you make the choice to not be a part of the daily life with them? But then heart comes face-to-face with the One who made me & the burdens shift & loads become lighter & the unexpected place becomes home.

I didn't know the place meant so much to me.
But then I left & returned & now spend the days here wondering how it is I'll be able to leave it again?

I don't suspect it will be for long this time. He's made it abundantly clear: this is the purposed place. 

And so even though my heart wrestles with the weight of that commitment, searches for answers in the midst of great unknowns & wonders how He plans for it all to unfold, I am completely at peace: No one knows me better than He. 

So I've been here nearly four days, back in the land I adore.
And, really, I haven't hardly slept -- jet-lag is not a companion of mine.

But, the hours -- they've already been well spent. They make me realize how full life is when we're about His heart's business, safely trusting our will to Him. 

It's cold and wet here, the rain pouring heavy over the city. I didn't wear my rain boots when I left and conveniently forgot to pack an umbrella. And so it'll be long walks throughout town today & I'm sure to end the week with a cold, but all is well. 

I've got an eight-month old baby on my hips & sure, she's cried most of the day. But, I'm here & I've got this incredible honor of loving on the Ones His heart beats tenderly for.

I think that's maybe what it means when we make our home in Him, yeah? 

Meggan

10.

An open love letter to that place  —

It's been nearly a decade now — ten years of my life spent just falling in love with you. 

It doesn't make sense and it isn't terribly convenient and sometimes it feels a little more like I'm losing it than living well. Yeah, like that time when I fumbled over my words, my language skills failing me bad and I just cried that I couldn't communicate well enough to buy peaches? 

But, alas, here we are. I'm smitten. Happiest when we're together. 

I first met you in Timisoara. You were lovely. The summer sun made you glow.

Then we found ourselves back together in Arad, Bucharest, Brasov, a few villages here and there, and eventually you caught my heart so deep that I moved & settled myself for a long while in Oradea. 

And now? Clock tells me I'm twenty four hours away from packing up again and flying across the deep blue just so we can say hello again. It's only been five months since I last saw you and your beautiful people. But it feels like it's been an eternity. 

I've missed you. You carry my heart. You hold my dreams. You are what He's purposed for me. Somehow? You've become heart's home. 

I can't wait to see you soon. 

Meggan 

#viatainromania 

07.

Chelsea,

It's one of those days where you can just feel the new mercies closing in around you, when the sky appears bluer and the sun seems a little warmer and your lips crease joy just because. Smiling yet? Yeah, me too. A whole mile wide.

These days don't always happen. Sometimes the ugly of life crowds in a little too much. But not today. Today I choose joy. Today, I'll let new mercies cradle me in close and I'll let myself feel it, how I'm loved.

Your words? They give me fresh hope. His favor abounds over you and that song He's singing? Yeah, I can hear it all the way over here, how He just loves you. Isn't it a wonder to be loved by Him? I'm a mess thinking about it today.

I'm settled in the wait and if I'm gritty honest here, it's hard work. 
Whoever said waiting was a chore for the half-hearted?

It's moment-to-moment battle, this preaching gospel to myself, and waging war with enemy and fighting off lies and gripping it, tighter and tighter, working out this faith and believing that He who promised is faithful. 

I'm feeling a wee bit exhausted. And maybe even a little bit defeated.

He's whispered promise to my heart, but all I see? Nothing.

How do we keep the faith, hold on, say that we're not going to let loose our grip on it until He fulfills the spoken word and how did Jacob do it? I think I need some of his grit. Let me touch the thigh of the One who fulfills.

Now, please?

Yeah, it's a lot easier to feel like the rest of them, "There's giants in the promised land. We can't do this." But if the other two didn't believe? If they'd agreed? Let logic control them? Fear get the best of them? Doubt? Yeah, they would have missed out on holy gift. 

Let it not be, Lord. 

So, I'm settled here and yeah, I have my days of defeat. But, we say that He who lives in us is greater.

I don't know what today will bring.
But no matter what comes?
We can always have as much of God as we want.

And He is the promise.

Hoping that soon you'll get letter and we will both rejoice that fulfillment does come and hope in Him really never disappoints. I'm fully anticipating it.

More soon,
Meggan

05.

Chelsea,

It's been a whirlwind of a year. Seems the seasons have rolled in and back out again without me hardly noticing. How does life blaze by so fast?

I'm stateside, but my heart is desperate for home across the deep blue. This always being present to the moment is becoming more difficult & I'm consistently wondering how in the world the heart is supposed to do that?

Creature comforts and familiarity and blood ties here.
Difficulty and unknown and the few people who make up family there.

And it's flight costs updating every few days on my screen and mid-night calls with the faces thousands of miles away from me and a whole lot of hoping and praying that He'll bring all the nonsense of it into a holy sense of Him. 

I don't know how that's supposed to happen, really.
Sometimes I don't even know what I want.

Here or there? It feels too complicated. Too heavy.

So, I've just decided that I'll settle in close to Him, let Him work out His always good plans from His heart that beats all the time love. 

For now? Calendar tells me I'm 7 days away from flying over the deep waters.
And I'm all sorts of giddy inside.

Maybe someday you'll come with?

For now, let's just love Him where we're at, keep our hearts intent on following Him to the ends of the earth, allow His Spirit to awaken deep faith and extraordinary purpose in us and maybe, we'll just find that this is the life we've been created for from the beginning?

Because, really -- what other living is there?

Meggan

PS: Streets from home. 

02.

Dear Chelsea, 

It’s been a whirlwind, the past few years blazing by with seasons of intense pain and extreme beauty. You know a lot about that. 

There’s the present unfolding & then there’s the years of memory and loss and an always settled hope that He is exactly who He says He is. 

Went to University, full of ambition and anticipation. They say these are the years that you’ll someday wish you had back. Nearly three years since I finished University and I’ve never quite wished that. Maybe it’s because I’m much more interested in what’s ahead than in what’s behind. But, maybe it’s also because they somehow form years of memories that now sting with loss and heartache. 

I met the dear man shortly after beginning my courses at University. I’d never set my eyes on a man before, but he was captivating. We were friends those first few years and eventually we were more than friends. I didn’t plan on falling in love during University and I certainly never anticipated that I’d fall in love with the hazel-eyed man who sat next to me my first course in University. 

But, life spins and hearts change and purposes collide and in one wild moment, everything seems to take on a new skin. So, there we were, two people, young in love, brimming with joy, moving forward into all we expected He had planned for us. 

This is the part where my heart shrivels up a bit and I wonder how words are supposed to articulate the pain of what came next, how mere sentences can describe the events, and how I can brave through it again with grace. 

We were in London just weeks prior, us both settled quiet in that beautiful cathedral. Then, we’d celebrated my twenty-first birthday in Bucharest a week or so later. And it all felt like a dream, like it couldn’t be my life that I was living. 

Until another few weeks passed and the dear man changed his mind about me. 

It was a few hours of conversation for five years of togetherness. Ten months of being engaged to the dear man and then in an instant, he changed his mind? 

The pain of those moments, days, months and now the years that they have become is a real pain. I have no way of understanding how or why. The questions our hearts toss and turn over, all without any sufficient answer. 

But, this I know: the heart of Christ never could change. 

He is always good. He is always love. No matter. 

And this the lesson of the years, these long, drawn out, often times lonely years — He is exactly who He says He is. 

I think we try so hard to understand circumstance that we miss the real truth: He is Christ. He is the only One who ever loved us to death and back to real and forever life. What do the questions matter in the face of that unconditional love? 

And so, life takes it’s toll, and my heart wrestles with the pain, but the years do pass and time does go on and you find that, even in the face of grave loss, you have Him. 

I think it’s safe to say that my life’s direction took a wild turn after the dear man left. In the moment of change, I didn’t see the sovereignty of God clearly. But, now, nearly three years later, I see it was love that carried me, mercy that refused me my heart’s deep desire. 

So the wondering and the worry? It just fades into His worthiness. I don’t need to figure it out. I don’t even want to. The years change a person and they sure have changed me and it’s all a beautiful tapestry that we’ve just got to believe He’s weaving for us. 

We see the bits of threads now, how He is weaving His plans for us into something wildly beautiful. 

One of those threads? How he picked me up and moved me across the deep blue to that place in Eastern Europe that for a decade now has captured my heart’s affection and solidified my life’s purpose. And how is it that He unfolded that? It’s still a wonder to me. 

I’ll soon be heading back to that place I call home, the place where the loss seems insignificant in the face of His goodness, the place where my joy is the fullest, where He woos me and dances with me and loves on me. I can’t wait to tell you more about it. 

Meggan 

PS: Little photo for you. Fresh blooms I passed everyday for a year. Hope births new life.