one year later.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow marks one year since the travel day to end all travel days:

the day I began my journey back to this place, wide-eye & expectant, swallowing fast the tears that came in greater waves than I imagined they would, on that first flight to Newark and then again as I watched Inside Out and we descended into Delhi. That was just the beginning of all the tears I would blink back over the next several months as things spiraled our of control and depression came so close until all hell broke loose over my soul, screaming for something more than all the hurt and pain and disappointment that I felt.

Today, unlike last year, I’m not blinking back those tears (although having an eye infection that flares into flames of hellfire in my eyes at the first sign of tears…that doesn’t help this crier very much). I know I need them and I embrace them. I may even watch Inside Out tomorrow just to have some time with them again. Yeah, I cannot help but embrace them because some days—this is such a very untrue feeling—it feels like they're all I’ve got that close to me.

Tomorrow marks one year—a year I never expected or wanted in terms of what circumstances I was given to walk through. But it was a year I needed. A year that has brought me to me knees and kept me surrendered—yes, a year I needed.

I wrote these words out in my journal tonight, a glimpse into my thoughts. As I read back over them now, I realize that so much has changed. And even if circumstances do spiral out again, I can face them. Because my tears aren’t the only thing that close to me. My Father is closer. This morning I read words of His coming in Zechariah 2, and it implored me to be still, be silent before Him. 

And tonight, after penning these words (and many more), I do find myself silenced. Not in fear of the unknown that looms ahead of me, but in awe of the One who comes in come. This is the silence He calls for—silence that doesn’t question his motives but trusts his heart as he moves in close.

He has roused himself to come close, the chapter in Zechariah closed. We can trust Him. With our memories that we’re still working through, our motives that we can’t seem to click into rhythm with His own, our messiness that we don’t think we can clean up. Even it we can’t, He can. Even if we don’t know how, He does. Even if we don’t think it will happen, He’s at work. Every detail is His. He didn’t miss a single moment of the past year—and He won’t miss a single moment of the next.