Leste, Best.

Distance. Like, a lot of distance.
794 miles.

That's... 4,192,320 feet (Yes, I used a calculator. Yes, I messed up more than once).

That's pretty far, considering my favorite place to be is 1 ft away from you, in the same room. Laughing in unison, eating anything from health shakes to chocolate truffles and sipping chai tea. Reminiscing, talking smack, and always, always eating. 

We talk of new favorite songs, hilarious jokes, heart wrenching struggles, and Jesus. And at every moment, even with this vast distance between us, I still have you close. Despite the millions of things keeping us apart, you're forever a prayer away (and thankfully, a text away, too).

Celeste Elizabeth Burnham, you are my best friend. 

I could not have woven together a more beautiful story for us if I tried. God's perfect handwriting is scrawled all over the pages of our friendship. And you are not just one chapter, like many fleeting things in my life. You, like all the most important people I've been blessed with, have seen me through my absolute worst. The pages of the book I want to ink over or rip out.

When I say "worst", I don't just mean the petty fights and the bad hair days. I don't just mean the days I feel fat or the days I forget to tell you I love you. I mean the days where I am simply unlovable. Where I speak like a hypocrite and I deliberately don't practice what I preach. 

You love me in a way the mirrors that of our Father, so lavishly and undeservingly. And although you will be the first to admit you're not perfect, that's fine with me-- I don't love you because you're perfect. I love you because we trust mutually, share honestly, and connect authentically.

I saw you last 163 days ago. When I say goodbye to you, I feel like a toddler being told she can't play with her favorite toy, and to sit down and not cry about it either. But I know that even with these huge gaps in being near you, I never feel like you are away. You are so much of my heart. 

You are the best of my life, Celeste. I truly mean that. When I look back to the seasons of my most inward growth and outward expression, you are there.  You're there loving me and encouraging me, and I don't know how you have the patience! You've taught me so much about what it means to listen, what it means to advise. You put up with my loud, obnoxious hellos and my long, tearful goodbyes. You deal with my inconsistencies and my selfishness, only to turn around with more love and affirmation. You make me better, and I pray I reflect much of the same for you. You are deserving, you are worth it. You are a gift. Don't forget it.

Without you, I'd still be looking down at my motionless feet, wondering why I wasn't moving. You help me run toward Him. Thank you for running with me. This weird life is better with you.

Olive the love, Meg

Prone to Wander

A loss of one's sense of self.

An indifference to one's moral integrity.

An unshakable numbness, warming one moment then frigid the next.


I don't feel like myself.
I don't wake up and thank God for all my blessings.
I don't instantly play my Jesus playlist when I bike to school.
I don't say my prayers at night.

I don't feel like myself.
I'm quick to gossip and slow to forgive.
I'm body conscious, worth-conscious, overall self-conscious.
I'm looking to receive love when I give it, often selfishly.

I don't feel like myself.
And I haven't for a several months.

I could blame this change on my busy schedule
My taxing workload
My lack of deep friendships.

I could blame my mistakes on anything.
Take no personal responsibility for the way my life looks.

But I won't.
The problem is inherent in the fact that I am human.

I've not been coming to God with my struggles because I haven't seen these things as struggles.
I see them as... independence.
Self-worth.
Growing up.
I don't ask God if I'm being who He wants me to be because
I'm ashamed of my habits
And I don't want Him to see them.
I don't want to be a hypocrite.
And asking for forgiveness would confirm that I am one.

I am one, indeed.

But grace, sweet grace that is incomprehensible to me, especially now,
Is not about me.
Grace and the blessings that come from it have nothing to do with how good I am
Or how bad I am.
Grace has everything to do with who God is.
How God loves.
Grace gives me permission to have bad days.
Grace allows me to come before the throne in the midst of my defilement.
Grace ensures me that I am never outside the view of the Most High.

The knowledge of this fact should be enough.
Before recently, mere knowledge hasn't been enough.
Satan grips tighter and pulls harder;
Now knowledge needs to turn into permanence.
And God is so willing to let that happen.

If only I choose to unfurl my fists.
If only I choose to drop the knife.

Choice in itself is grace.
I can choose grace.
For it is already there to be taken.
He has already forgiven me.

"Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.

Prone to leave the God I love.

Take my heart, Lord, take and seal it.

Seal it for thy courts above."