Blessings: Laura Story

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It's not our home

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise

Oops!

Oops! I posted the first draft with the final, which I didn't want to share....

The Beginning Of An End

In nine days I will begin the last year of my undergraduate study. It seems odd that something that I have committed so much time, money and efforts to throughout the past four years will disappear so quickly. Is it fun to flirt with the idea that I can be considered a real adult and live a "real" life, yes, but frankly I don't know how I feel about making that step.

I suppose it isn't my decision to make the step or not, the step will happen whether I choose to make it or not.

I was always told by many in high school that once I was able to attend college I would blossom. That is one of those comments that you know what it means, but don't at the same time, and you just kind of shrug it off. So I blossom, cool, doesn't it happen to all of us. Yes, I suppose so. I suppose we all blossom at some point in our lives, but that individualized experience of blossoming is one that is irreplaceable for each person.

It feels great to blossom. Its' true whether I like to admit it or not, my roots are still rooted in what I call home. However, a flower isn't a flower without the roots and the blossom. I wouldn't be who I am today if it wasn't for my home and the complexities of it, but I wouldn't be who I am without the blossoming experience these last four years.

Some thought I was silly for coming here. Some thought it was rebellion, and maybe it partially was, but it turned out to be the best rebellious decision I have ever made.

The end of these four years means success. It is an accomplishment to graduate from high school, let alone college, but can I argue that it's a moment for grieving too. It's difficult for me to swallow the idea of not living in this broken, but beautiful city. I might not miss the sirens, or the air I breathe here, but I am going to miss the beautiful faces I see every morning as I walk down Kimball, especially the woman on the corner near my apartment who sells snow cones in the summers. The five words in know in Spanish helps me greet her every morning and put a smile on her face, but to think of a morning without her there seems sad.

To think of a life without Liz a few steps away seems wrong. It seems wrong to not have your best friend to walk through life with you, but I suppose that the word walking can be redefined. It seems perverse to leave a place of worship that has moved me to tears so many times that I really can't remember, but most importantly it seems "most wrong" to leave a place that has inspired me to follow Jesus no matter where that leads.

Will I continue to follow Jesus as I leave this place, of course, but will I ever be inspired in such a way again?

There are good things to replace the moments that cause me grief, like a relationship with the love of my life that isn't through a phone, or a train distance away, and the possibility that marriage is one step closer, or, the ability to live out this faith that I have learned here in a place that doesn't really understand it and may be transformed by it.

While I am in this place of grief and celebration, I hope that the balance is equal, and moments of celebration will be celebrated and moments of grief will be grieved.

"Natural devotion may be enough to attract us to Jesus, to make us feel His irresistible charm, but it will never make us disciples. Natural devotion will deny Jesus, always falling short of what it means to truly follow Him."

Dark Star

"Believe God is always the God you know him to be when you are nearest to him"~Oswald Chambers

Almost Lover

I know I suck at this whole blog thing...and I suppose that that isn't okay. I am really going to try to write more than I have (which won't take much effort =)).

I am currently reading My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers, which I feel everyone seems to be reading that book right now...Anyways, today I read about surrendering to God's will, which is something Christians here about all the time. I think we can all agree that giving our entire lives and control over to God isn't the easiest thing that we have or ever will have to do, but if we were capable of doing so, what would this world look like?

While I was reading I couldn't stop relating the surrendering of our wills to God to the scene in Harry Potter where Harry drinks a vile of liquid luck. Liquid Luck is a potion that is exactly like the name, luck. When you drink this potion, you immediately do things that will benefit you in some way, in terms of a certain goal you are achieving. However, sometimes it is difficult for people to understand why you are doing the things that you are doing. For example, after Harry drinks the potion, he tells Ron and Hermione that he is going to go to Hagrid's Hut, which is the last person he needs to talk to to reach his intended goal of befriending a certain professor. Ron and Hermione are thoroughly confused, but they can't really stop him.

If we could all completely submit our lives, ambitions, and steps to God on a daily basis, I think that we would appear to be the Harry that took liquid luck. We would do things that wouldn't make sense to ourselves or others, but they would be beneficial to us, because the actions are a part of a bigger and better plan. Just like Harry had to make the step to swallow the potion, which was a risk, we have to swallow the idea of giving up ourselves and everything we have control over to God, which at face value is seen as a risk.

Longing, Loneliness, and Love

As many of you know, I have been in a long distance relationship for almost two years now. Obviously this isn't ideal, but I don't think that I would want my relationship any other way, except for maybe now =). I also moved into school a few weeks early, and have spent a lot of time in deep thought with myself. Because of these experiences, I can say I know what it's like to long for someone or something with every fiber of my being, love someone the way Jesus wanted us to love, and to be lonely.

It all starts with loneliness. To truly know yourself, you need to experience loneliness at some point in your life. I don't think that it is healthy for people to be lonely all the time, but some loneliness is necessary for us humans. First off, we spend so much time with other people, and if not real people, people on the television screen, or chatting to them on the internet. When we spend to much time with other people, we loose the connection that we have to ourselves. We forget the importance of taking care of ourselves. I know that the American culture is known to be selfish, and we all are at times, but I find myself not taking care of myself because of others, rather than being the typical selfish American. I struggle with defining that line of taking care of people, but not hurting myself in the process.

I do believe that loneliness is different than being in touch with who you are as a person, however I think in this situation, it took loneliness for me to connect with myself. Why is it, that such a unhappy, drastic measure is needed for me to connect with myself? Is it because I don't want to deal with my own personal failures? Am I to afraid to be disappointed in myself? Is it because if disappointment occurs, I know that I will be depressed for a period of time? If this is the case, I have a lot of work to do in being comfortable with my imperfections, and my failures. My perfectionist thinking wants to tell me that every time i don't do something perfect, it isn't right. Just because something isn't perfect, doesn't mean it isn't right. I am to hard on myself. I need to make myself realize that what I do is good.

However, maybe this is my perfectionist thinking again, I feel that I can't always make myself believe that what I do is good. I can't always give myself a free pass. I need to have some sort of accountability level within myself. Obviously, I struggle with the balance of keeping myself accountable, and becoming comfortable with imperfections. It took two weeks of being by myself, and patches of loneliness to encounter myself.

While struggling with my loneliness, I encounter myself, and while I encounter myself I encounter my longings. The longings that are deep inside you. Not the kind of longing where you would like air conditioning, or an ice cold beverage right next to you, but the deep longings of your heart. One of the deepest longings of my heart is to be with him. It's odd how you reach a point in your life where you can't live without this one other person. A few years ago a was your typically independent, can't wait to get to college kind of girl. However, God seemed to have a different plan for me than I intended for myself. I always pictured myself as the single woman living in the big city, who was happy with macaroni and cheese and wine for dinner. I never expected myself to be with someone else, or even need someone else. The idea of sharing my wine and macaroni and cheese not only seems like the right thing to do, it is what I want to do.

Over the past two years, the love that has grown in my heart for this one person has turned into a deep longing of the heart, a longing that needs to be filled. It's amazing to know that I serve an awesome God who has control of my path, and guides my footsteps each and every day. My God has surprised me with the path that he intends for me to walk, and he has also given me the joy of being lonely, to realize who I am as a person, and also the deep longings of my soul.