I'm breathing in, breathing out Your grace

    People tell me I'm an open book, and I see where they're coming from- I'm honest and affectionate and my heart is eternally on my sleeve, whether I like it or not. And yet for all the talking I do, for all the Something my words are able to create out of Nothing, I am somewhat hidden away. 
    I love words. I am fascinated by their ability to build stories in the same way a musician puts notes together to create a song. Writing is my instrument. Words are the music I make. Words can create beauty in one sentence and tear down someone's castles in the air in the next. Words set me free- I process my emotions by writing them down or talking them out. 
    At the same time, however, words hold me back. I spend more time talking about what I should do then actually doing it. I write whole to-do lists that never get crossed off. I am the talker, the motivator of others who sits tentatively in the corner, writing furiously about a life she is too scared to try living because she can't let herself make mistakes.
    I guess you could say I'm a terrified perfectionist with a desperate craving for love. I aim so entirely for the approval of others that I don't quite know what it means to live. My life is centered around how I look to other people, and I've spent so damn long trying so damn hard- to be the good role model, the perfect daughter, the best friend, the Christlike young woman. I wanted to be perfect, and when I made mistakes I let them haunt me, lurking perpetually at the corners of my memory like monsters that only come out at the most inconvenient times. I expected other people to be perfect as well, and when they inevitably messed up I subconsciously held it against them, festering all the deeper my stubborn pride and self-righteousness behind a facade of calm naivety. 
    I'm a pretty crappy Christian. I expected perfection -from myself, from those around me, from the world- because I thought God couldn't love what wasn't perfect. I completely ignored the presence of the grace which is so central to the faith I profess.
    My middle name is Grace. My full name literally means "victory in grace." I think God had a hand in my parents' picking of my name. He foreknew my struggle, just as He foreknows what tomorrow will bring and when the first snow of this winter will come and who I will marry. He knew I'd suffer from not comprehending the depth of His grace, and that as soon as I began to feebly grasp its concept I would be set free, unbridled and blameless to share in His victory. I have lived nearly nineteen years with the answer to my anxious battle right under my nose- typed neatly on my birth certificate, scrawled on the inside cover of my beloved Jane Austen novels, printed boldly on the abundance of mail I received from the college of my dreams. There is power in this mess of grace, and that power is the ability to bravely live, unafraid of making mistakes because God's forgiveness is incomprehensibly vast.
    I need to let go. I have to love other people, especially when they mess up. Sometimes all you can do is watch as the glass rolls off the countertop and shatters into a million pieces, trusting that the mess will get cleaned up eventually. I cannot save people, only Jesus can.
    I have to be brave enough to admit that I am not alright. I am very tired and broken and far from good. I have had my innocence completely stripped away and that's okay. This world isn't perfect, and what happened to me was inevitable- I need to stop running from my past, because the longer I run the longer I let it dog me. I am not the perfect daughter. I set a crappy example. I can be a terrible friend. I misrepresent Jesus on a daily basis. And, you know what? Thank God. His intention was for me to be imperfect- if I was blameless, I wouldn't need Him. And I need to need Him as much as I need to breathe.
    I can make a few mistakes, and that's okay. I am allowed to be wrong. To be wrong is to be alive, and I anticipate the start of my living as I anticipate my ability to look back one day and say I lived, and I loved well, and the grace of God was my safety net that caught me every time I fell on my face.

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 :)
   

Call me a lunatic, then.

   

the chapel at Sacred Heart University, everybody.

    Life is beginning here on my campus, going by quickly yet slower than anything at the same time. Three weeks into my freshman year and my classmates and I are settling into our routines. I know my way around school now. I know when I have to leave my dorm in order to get to my first class on time. I know I have to drink at least two coffees on Mondays in order to survive my 3-hour lab after dinner.
    I'm falling in love with my new home like the leaves that are now cascading off the trees outside of Merton Hall. I love the atmosphere of every home football game that we, the Pioneers, host. I love walking back from the gym after a good, long run on the treadmill. I love flopping onto the grassy quad after choir practice with my roommate. I love the way the brightly colored, fallen leaves contrast with the vivid green grass outside of the library, where the ladies at the Starbucks inside are so chatty and my nursing major friends and I meet to study.
    I'm trying new things. Not just the chef's special at 63's- I began a ballroom dance class and surprisingly I do not suck at it. Dancing is fun- hard and confusing at first, but after much stumbling and tripping over my partner's feet I am able to glide almost gracefully across the floor with minimal glancing at my ever-clumsy, sock-clad feet. I joined an improv acting troupe, and let me tell you that I hadn't laughed long and hard since I got here, until our Tuesday night meeting in the little theater.        Stepping outside of my comfort zone has surprisingly boosted my confidence level. I had no idea I was this social. I've interacted with so many new people since I arrived, and it's nice that I am now able to walk past people I know in the halls and say hi. 
    I don't feel so alone anymore. I have a core group of friends that I'm starting to love, and having people I can connect with in classes and clubs is new and wonderful. I'm not used to seeing my friends every day -homeschooler problems- and I love how I can now simply run into my friends, in the cafeteria or at the chapel, and just hang out with them in between classes. I spend less time texting my friends here because I can merely walk across campus to see them face-to-face.
    Who knows if these friendships will last? If what I'm doing here will impact me for better or worse? I'm leaving that up to God- I know this is where He wants me, and I have never felt His presence as strongly in my life since I came here. Being in a non-church environment has made my faith stronger- is that crazy?
    I think it's crazy. But so is adhering to faith in our postmodern society. Call me a lunatic, then.
--Laura

Life begins.

    College. That's where I have been a resident for exactly two weeks. I'm almost through with my first week of classes, have registered for an appropriate number of clubs and events, and racked up a small hoard of free t-shirts from all the freshman socials. Yesterday all I ate besides dinner was a muffin and two free iced coffees from the Starbucks in my campus library (yes, we have a Starbucks in the library, and yes, you should be very jealous). I'm still getting lost in the halls -need I remind you, I am a former homeschooler, so this whole "leaving the living room and putting on real pants to get an education" thing is utterly baffling- and I haven't showed up to class in my pajamas just yet. I've made a few friends, but sometimes I feel a little lonely and homesick, because for the first time in my entire life I'm in an entirely new place, surrounded by people I have not known since infancy, doing something I have never done before.

    I guess what I'm trying to prove is that my freshman year has been pretty typical so far. Although, I don't think I'm as bad off as some of my classmates- I've had a few people mistake me for an RA, and last night a couple of my fellow freshman told me they thought I was a junior because I look "so sophisticated."

    If only they knew how lost I feel sometimes. How I've cried exactly twice since I've been here, due to insecurity and my inner feelings of inadequacy. How the strangest things remind me of my mom: the garlic mashed potatoes in the cafeteria, how the librarians cut their scrap paper, even the way I've become suddenly very social and welcoming- like mother, like daughter. I am more akin to her than I thought, and it took two weeks of soaring out from under her protective wing for me to understand that.

   And I know I'm paying an inordinately large sum of money to attend Sacred Heart, yet ironically enough the most profound, influential things that I have learned have come from outside of the classrooms. This goes beyond how many anatomical terms I can memorize when I study by myself. This has to do with how much I have learned about life since I came here.

    Life is precious. I used to imagine what it would be like to get hit by a car, but it took the death of an upperclassmen and a very emotional vigil, in which I sang with the choir, for me to realize how serious and sacred our limited years on earth can be. After the vigil, after some of the upperclassmen helped us process our grief, I told my mother I loved her. I realized how much I had to lose. All of this on my second day on campus.

    The phrase "Life begins at the end of your comfort zone" is true. I can't count how many times I've had to drag myself outside of myself in order to meet new people, try new things, and be open and vulnerable. Some of my best memories from these past two weeks involve situations in which I went completely against my inner, anxious self- when I asked a classmate if she was okay and ended up becoming her friend, when my friends and I waited in line for ice cream for an hour and a half and met some cool people, when I brought brownies around to the girls on my floor and ended up watching a movie with and getting to know a few of them, when I signed up for a ballroom dance class, when I shared my faith. All things weird, for me, but all things worth it in the long run.

    Loving hurts. This has less to do with what I've learned on campus, but somethings from my outside life have leaked in here, and made me understand the essential pain that comes with love. Love hurts because it's worth it, just like stepping outside of your comfort zone. It's okay to be sad when you are wounded by love, but you cannot let the sadness overwhelm you. You have to let it produce growth, and make you stronger. Keeping yourself abstained from love will only make you cold and harsh. Fear not the bleeding heart- my heart overflows with love, for my family and friends and now my campus, which is suddenly, startlingly, becoming my home. God meant for pain and love to coexist. We could not have one without the other.

    Here I have processed all I have seen and done over these past few weeks. Fall is fast approaching- the leaves are already falling from the trees outside of my dorm, and I'm itching to pull out my sweaters and boots even though the temperature is in the 70's. It will come with time, just like everything else. And I can't wait to see what God brings with the colors of autumn and the chill of the early-morning, New England air.

--Laura :)

Happy birthday to a friend

    We all have our people. Call them what you will- the Tribe. Squad. Harem. Beloved And Highly Exclusive Throng Of Favorites. One of my tribe, she's a gem, a tiny nugget of wisdom with a name that is an adjective that only God could have planned would describe her perfectly.

    They call her Grace.

    In the same way that the grace of God has shaped my life in a million little ways, so has Grace changed me in ways that can only be from God. She walks in the light, following Jesus and glorifying Him, all the while having fun and occasionally making mistakes, like you or I or any other of our fellow human beings.

    But Gracie, she's different. She does not need people. She is one of a handful of teenage girls who doesn't have to ask if she looks beautiful, because she listens to God. God, who tells her she is, of course, more radiant than the sun, and that her beauty goes deeper than her golden hair and the light in her *Asian* eyes.

    Grace is secretly good with people. She says she has an aversion to them, making regurgitating noises in her throat when we talk about boybands and the moral decadence of our fellow young women. But, I have seen her reach out in compassion- quietly, rightly, just how she does everything else. I have been soothed by her while I cry, overwhelmed by my own existence and the cruel edges that have cut me in this fallen world. I have witnessed her makes small talk and give children the giggles and diffuse her seemingly endless supply of patience. She can avoid leaving the house, introverting as much as she pleases, but I know her capacity for idiots, and it's very high.

    One of my favorite things about Grace is her sense of humor. When you know someone for more than your whole life, your mothers having met in a church nursery when they were simultaneously pregnant with children who were neither of you, your brains seem to grow together. And it is both the most wonderful, yet freakiest thing that has ever happened. It has reached the point where I can say one word, look at Grace, and share a dark bout of laughter, because our minds have fused together so seamlessly that the same things remind us of the same things- a private joke, a childhood memory, an obscure fandom reference. She is my mental Siamese twin, for which I am eternally grateful.

    Gracie is a conundrum, a lovable bundle of contradictions. She is both sunshine and the silver moon, a beautiful piano concerto and the silence at dawn before the world wakes up, a productive young woman and a surly teenager who has to be dragged out of bed for school. And I know in my heart of hearts that she will go places. God could not have created this much talent in one person to not have her go out and impact the world.

    She turns seventeen today, but when I look at her I see all of her past ages- 6 years old, make-believing Robin Hood's Children at Lyman Orchards, pretending to be the oldest son who dies taking care of everyone else while we contract scarlet fever. Aged 11, hair parted down the middle, her hands shoved in the pockets of a hand-me-down hoodie. 14, suddenly a very bright, budding pianist. Where has the time gone? It's still there. Our past selves live on inside of us, and as Grace enters her senior year of high school she goes with her name- grace. Dignity. An everchanging person with imprints from her former selves forever etched into the essence of her being.

    So, happy birthday to one of my favorite people of all time. Here are a few things to make you laugh, cry, and maybe have a fantastic year. I love you, Grace-with-the-beautiful-face. DFTBA.

Throwback to our jean jumper, bad haircut, chubby-kid-with-the-inhaler days.

for your feelings.

I couldn't not add this :)

The best GIF to ever GIF

because you do :)

Because God is changing my life through this guy^^

You know that's right.

our boys!

--Laura :)

Ebbing and flowing.

    The sea came to me today. I love how the ocean does its thing- it stays just where it is but it also does not, ebbing and flowing upon the sand in a fashion that is consistent, yet so capricious, at the same time. It makes a calming, soothing noise, seemingly harmless in its tone yet alluring like a Siren's call to a weary sailor like me (except I am a sailor of the high seas of life, not the Atlantic).

    

    The ocean was calling, and so I answered, kicking my shoes off in the car and stepping barefoot into nature, the way God must have intended for us to experience His creation, for were not Adam and Eve unshod? I left the deep gray skies of the seaside town behind, turning my back upon the weather-beaten cottages and corner shops to embrace the neverending blues of sky and surf.

    The wind battered my face and hair and clothes with a wildly intriguing harshness. Already considered a small person by physical standards, I felt infinitely more minuscule as I stood against this turbulent breeze amid the howling storm. But I stood my petite, five-foot-three ground, tipping my toes into the coming waves and soaking up the beauty of the world that no camera filter could have rectified.

    

 And as I stood firmly planted on that beach I realized: oceans are symbolic of life, its ups and  downs and all of its in between happenings in general. The sea is constant, always there but everchanging, as full of light and depth and mystery as a handsome stranger. The ocean is life- sometimes habitual, sometimes unpredictable, but always there, repeating itself in cyclic fashion, over and over and over again.

    The rain began to fall in big, fat raindrops, rippling into the tide but never deterring its purpose. And I had a minor epiphany: even the sea gets rained on. In all its majesty and playful dauntlessness, even the sea has storms. And the sea stands its ground. It does not cripple under the pressure of the falling skies above; it keeps doing its thing. It gets a bit bigger. It gets a bit rougher. But ultimately it thrives, even when the hurricane comes and leaves destruction in its path.

   And, if the ocean can do it, why can't I?

    --Laura :)