Today marks day 12 of being in Romania. Twelve days that have been filled with a lot of heaviness. Going from Guatemala to Romania is an extreme change. The culture, climate, time change, and environment are completely different.

The past twelve days have been filled with lots of good things: new foods, new ministry, new friends, new cities, new clothes, new hosts… so many new things. The streets are lit with Christmas lights, music plays in the city square with Christmas songs, restaurants are decorated, winter weather is here. However, even with the light of Christmas near, I found myself the past twelve days just feeling so sad and broken.

Leaving Guatemala I cried on the chicken bus riding to the airport, and at the airport, and then just packed down the rest of my tears in the luggage of the bottom of my heart. After three flights and two train rides I emotionally put up this wall all around me. Had I not learned the first time when God broke down the wall of a language barrier and brought healing to me, to not build my own walls. Unfortunately I built a new wall though, brick by brick I told myself “I don’t want to know this place, I don’t want to learn the language, I don’t want to build relationships here,” because honestly I really didn’t want to feel the pain of leaving a place and people I had fallen so deeply in love with again. I decided that it would be so much easier to force myself to not enjoy what I was doing than to love it and one day leave heartbroken again.

Praise God it is only day twelve! Praise God He has been so kind to bring me this revelation so soon and that this wall can be broken down only shortly after it was built. There’s a lot of fear knowing that at the end of 2023 when we hop on another train or plane to our next country my heart will cry out again, but there’s also a sweetness knowing that God is so good to me and that I get to love people and places so much that saying bye is hard because of all the great things and goodness.

Tonight as I allowed myself to grieve the blessings of Guatemala, I thought back on all the memories. Every person that touched my life, every place that was filled with purpose, every song, scripture, and word that the Lord spoke. I sat in the sweetness of these moments and wrote them all down. All I could do as I rested in this space was cry out “thank you, Lord”. One simple phrase. Thank you, Lord. My heart just cries out saying “thank you, Lord”. The goodbye is hard, but building walls will only make the future harder. Tonight I get to stand in victory of another wall broken down, the joy and blessing of all that Guatemala taught me, and trust that God is faithful and so much good is coming! 

I will praise Him on the mountains, I will praise Him in the valleys, with all that I am, I will praise the Lord.

Thank you, Lord.

Now I come in expectation, that God is going to move here and it’s gonna be good. God is going to continue breaking down walls. The best is yet to come!

Here’s to a new season of breaking down walls.