Dear Cara,

Many, many months ago I sat in a booth in Panera and wrote you a letter that I posted on here knowing you’d see it when your plane landed in Ecuador. You were leaving to work with orphans and I wanted the whole world to know how proud I was of you. When you got off that plane, I wanted you to know how proud I was of you.

You haven’t come home once in all these long months; you’ve stayed there, stayed with those babies for all these months. You washed their onesies with your own hands while they took naps. You learned their language so you could sing to them in words they would understand. You cried over those babies, Cara.

You and I have shared a lot of experiences over the years. Twenty page papers for Media Law, left to write until the night before they were due. Countless pans of brownies (I still don’t understand why you don’t like them gooey). Laying in your bed last fall talking about our boyfriends until 3 a.m.

And now we’re about to get to experience something else together, cupcake.

Tonight you’re thousands of miles away from me, packing your suitcases to come home to all of us. You’re leaving behind a lot of things you took with you and you’re bringing back things you found there. You’ve worked for months to adapt to your life there and, when you step onto that plane tomorrow, you’ll start the process of adapting to your life back here. Ministry will still be your calling, but not necessarily your vocation for this next season of your life.

And there will be a moment when you’re on that plane where you’ll wonder if it was worth it, where you’ll wonder about the sacrifice you have given. You’ll wonder if it was enough, if you did everything God asked you to do during that time. I know you’ll think these things as you come back because they’re the same things I’ve wondered as I’ve gone through the transition of coming out of vocational ministry.

I’ve only been in this season for a few months now, so I don’t have a lot of suggestions at this point in the game. But if you need something to cling to while you fly home tomorrow, you can borrow what I’ve been using if you’d like.

“Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men?

If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

Galatians 1:10

So put your blue jeans on and come back home, girl. We’re about 11 months overdue for breakfast at the Barrel.

amy beth

(More moments with Cara here and here.)