today

This day last year was arguably the best day of my life second to being saved & redeemed by Jesus Christ. 12 January, 2012.
The day I arrived in London.
The day I faced my fears.
The day I fell in love.
The day my life changed.

Don't get me wrong, I am forever grateful for that day and all that followed. I am insanely thankful that God cemented in my heart a love for London and continues to assure me that His will for me in London is not completed yet. Life now is so very different than it was a year ago, and I am grateful for how massively and magnificently God has shown up and been faithful in the big and little circumstances. I love where He has me and what He's doing here at this time...
But I want to rewind my life. I want to go back and be whole again. I want to be fully happy again. I want to be whispered to by Him as often as I was while in England (which was a lot). Not that He doesn't speak any more or I'm not mostly happy or He doesn't continue to fill me to overflowing- He does all those things and more. But knowing that life is this spectacular here, but *could be* 4x more awesome if I were in London, simply because He molded my heart to fit perfectly there... it totally kills me.
I think I've mentioned it before, how I've prayed for so many years that He would simply break me.
And He finally answered the prayer.
I am so sweetly broken in the most complex way I could imagine. I'm broken over the fact that I'm simply not home. I'm broken over the fact that it took me this long to let Him break me. I'm broken over the fact that I can't seem to be as close to Him on this side of the ocean as I was to Him while across the pond. and a few other forms of brokenness that I can't quite put a finger on.

It so utterly humbles me that every moment of my life up to that point on January 11 when I left the USA was preparation for London and Him ordering my steps. I can't believe that He could be that loving and that awesome and that wise and that magnificent and that meticulous and that excellent, that He would take the time to say,
"Look at this little 9 year old girl. She loves me, yet she doesn't know me.
I'm gonna make her want to take piano, and do cartwheels, and go to summer camp.
These things will lead her to teach music, and gymnastics, and will take her directly to the college I want her at, so that she can see flyers for a semester abroad in England and think, 'What fun! I love british accents!'
and go,
and find the reason that she is alive.
And she'll fall in love with me and I'll teach her and I'll sing to her
and we will go on great adventures together!
This innocent nine-year-old doesn't even know how I'm working in her life to consecrate her to me over the next ten years and the rest of her life!"

I am so blown away by the magnitude and depth and force of my Great God and His love.