Nights Like These

    I swear I'm an extrovert. I just occasionally need a night like this- one where I can be alone and recharge and work through things. I love being out and about on campus, getting overly involved and meeting new people and making memories. It's just that life gets me down sometimes, and I used to think having a night like this was a sign of weakness or laziness. Only now do I realize that this is crucial for my good health.
    Nights like this- ones when I do not speak a word for hours yet sing Mumford and Sons lyrics at the top of my lungs whenever I need to hear a voice. When I can waste away time blasting nostalgic music and scrolling down Tumblr. When I write or cry or do sit-ups to work through my aggression.
    These nights are dimly lit by Christmas lights and laptop screens, accompanied by dark cups of tea and oversized sweaters that hide the body I am so intricately insecure about. I stare at my face in the mirror until it no longer looks like a face, going over my features and changing my expressions until I tire myself out with my critical vanity.
    I spend these nights curled up in my cozy nest of a bed, my hair either in waves all around my shoulders or messily pulled up atop my head. Sometimes I get up and pace, either to work through an issue or get past some writer's block. Sometimes I lie on the floor, and sometimes I swear and yell. Sometimes there just aren't enough words in the world to describe how you feel.
    A night like this is essential, because it is in these seemingly inconsequential hours that I remember who I am. I am able to think and pray and process my day, my issues, my calling- what God has put me here and now to accomplish. I recharge on nights like this, and then next day I awaken stronger, able and eager to deal with the world because I stepped back and took things in stride.
    It's okay to be an introverted extrovert. It's okay to have problems that deserve a great deal of thought. It's okay to spend time alone- in fact, I would venture to say it is essential.

    And since Tumblr is my best friend at the moment, I thought I would finish off this post with the best of my majestic Dashboard:

I haven't been able to take a bath since I came to school and it really bugs me.

I find something alluring in the water droplets on autumn leaves

all at once, everything is different...

<33

I deserve this.

This makes me think of my family.

Ferris Bueller knows his stuff.

my favorite male :)

and, finally, where I want to be. :)

--Laura :)

Butterflies and faith

    It was cold this morning. I left my dorm at quarter to eight, the unpleasant chill of the early autumn wind whipping my skirt and making me long for my warm, unkempt bed more than ever. I knew I looked nice today but I hate looking nice. I don't like the attention I get when I dress up, when I dare to show off the curves of my body, which have been hidden modestly away under baggy sweatshirts since my awkward pubescence. Yes, I'm insecure. When I was younger, my body was given the wrong sort of attention, and that was that. I only dressed up today because I am trying to get over my body image issues and the situations that made me the way I am.
    The sky was a pale blue, etched with wispy clouds that provided the perfect backdrop for the rusting trees on campus. I walked under the oaks on the way to the library, their leaves cascading down in autumnal rhythm, and I saw a butterfly flitting out over the still-green grass. I took it as a good sign.
    I tend to look for signs. I have an unquenchable level of anxiety, a need for control, a desperate desire to know that everything is going to be okay. And so I ask God to show me, and I hear and see things and call them signs- song lyrics, sermons, colors and everyday happenings. Maybe they are signs, maybe I'm just being a hopeless romantic- God only knows. All I want is His knowledge, His foresight, in order that I may lay my worries for the future to rest and put my time and energy into the here and now.
    And yet...I am coming to realize that faith is not a God-given understanding. Faith is trusting in God's plan, especially when you don't know what He's doing. Faith is being so hopelessly in love with your Heavenly Father that nothing else you've tasted here on earth even remotely compares to the divine romance you have experienced with your Redeemer. Faith may not be screaming in your ears or flamboyantly parading in front of your face- rather, it's something you have to listen for. It requires patience, and it requires trust. And as soon as you acquire those two things you gain the most invaluable asset the universe has to offer- what it was created for.
    I have seen and I have tasted this world, and I regret to inform you that I am quite falling out of love with it. I am slipping into the embrace of my Father in heaven, and I am never turning back. And so, as I await His final redemption and healing here in this broken world, I look for signs of His presence. And maybe that's what that butterfly was today- a little bit of light to turn my swirling thoughts onto Him.
    I have no idea, but God does, and at the end of the day that is all that matters.
--Laura :)