"faithful"

is the word that has echoed through my head like a haunting melody for the entirety of my summer. In my quiet moments, in my thoughts before I fall asleep, and sometimes even during the noisy chaos of tasks and details, I hear it clearly. It's been constant and sometimes abruptly alarming, like a wave that suddenly knocks you over in an ocean where you think you know what to expect.

After a whirlwind few days of packing, moving in, unpacking, catching up, scuttling all about cville, talking so much with friends that my throat is dying, and trying to consider what life will look like this upcoming semester, I hear it loudly and consistently. Faithful, faithful. As I've sat with it tonight, I'm realizing what it has taught me the past few months.

I have realized that the Lord did not send me to Nicaragua this summer simply because I asked that He would, but that I went because He loves me. How funny to realize that in my desire to be there was the Lord revealing that He is capable of turning our prayers into miracles we cannot begin to fathom.

Since the night I started following Christ in high school, I have prayed almost daily that God would teach me how to love Him better. Here is the miracle: I am walking into this year with a fresh heart that is deeply, deeply in love with God. This was not something I could accomplish on my own and is not who I was.

It's because He was faithful to me.

God has given me what I've needed this summer. In Nicaragua, He taught me how to love Him deeply in ways I had not allowed myself to before. And when I got home, through weeks of feeling wrecked and heart broken and wanting to distance myself because the world hurt my soul too much, I heard Him whispering faithful, faithful, and He kept me close. To my spirit He said, "I am the same today as I was yesterday and as I will be tomorrow. This is me showing you to break for what breaks me, and also to love how I love you. This is me showing you to be faithful to me as I am faithful to you."

The joy of the Lord transforming me is enough to make me weep. In fact, it does sometimes. He keeps His promises. He heard my prayers, even when they seemed unanswered and I seemed unchanged. He was faithfully working as I lifted up what felt like powerless gasps of air. In my words, His faithful gift of love was working magic. It still is.

Tonight, as I process and reflect and gear up for unexpected third-year life, I am simply grateful. I am grateful to my God who loves me and who has revealed to me even small glimpses into His transformation process.

I wonder....if you were to think about it, in what beautiful ways has the Lord been faithful to you?