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LaLa_the_Explorer
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Name: Lauren
Country: United States
State: North Carolina
Metro: Chapel Hill
Birthday: 9/23/1984
Gender: Female
Interests: gettin a grip on grace, love, mercy, righteousness, salvation, sanctification and all those other things that I've been given undeservingly.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Entertainment
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
5/28/2005
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| I wish I could feel this way forever...to capture this moment right now and put it inside a glass bottle so that on days when I forget who I am or why I am doing what I am doing, I could just open this up and my senses would remind me of this memory. This memory..so clear, so discernible...clarity is a gift..and it is in this brief moment of clarity in my life that I find myself so incredibly thankful.
I am here to serve a purpose. It's not as cutthroat or straightforward as it sounds, but I am here. I am blessed to have found my purpose and to be able to live in it. I don't mean blessed in the sense of lucky, like there are those who haven't found theirs who should be jealous or like i almost got hit by a car but didn't because "I was lucky". I am blessed.
As I get closer and closer to the classroom, I have realized that I am scared and nervous. I am entering a profession where there are so many parts to the equation to becoming a good teacher, it's easy to be overwhelmed in trying to remember them. Yet, all of these pieces are inside of me, and I have to trust that the training I've been given and the calling on my life will lead me to a not worry, but just be...me. Just be me. Just be who I am every day, knowing that who I am is who I am supposed to be, and that this is enough. It is so easy to be lazy in this profession and seem just as good as everybody else, yet its so hard to excel.
I want to be great for my kids. I want them to love learning...I want them to have fun. I want to be fun for my kids. And I want to be different. I want to be new and exciting. And I have no idea what that is going to look like. And that scares the crap out of me...
I've thought over my first day of school 100 times, what it will be like, what activities I'll create for them to do, how much fun it will be, and how different it will be from every math class they've ever stepped into. And then after I think about that for a while, I remember I have 179 OTHER days to teach. And how it's so important to make things different. Every day kids should walk into class having no idea what we're going to do and expect something new. But instead we think that a routine is better for their developing brains!? Come in, do your warm up, go over your homework..yada yada yada...Boring. BUT HOW DO YOU MAKE IT DIFFERENT.
I don't really know...but I'll probably spend the rest of this summer trying to figure that out...And THAT I am excited about.:)
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| Do you ever feel like to fully receive the blessings that God has for us we have to quit other things? I'm not talking about sinful things, really, although it would make logical sense if that were the case. What about non-sinful things. At one point, I struggled, asking God what my purpose for continuing this thing was, and I learned it was for the people I have met along the way. There was no other real point in continuing said thing except to learn how to love people that I wouldn't have tried to love otherwise. It was like this was my comfort zone O, and God was trying to stretch it to make it bigger. I am fine with stretching, I enjoy being stretched I think, on most days, except for when it's most painful. :) But now, months later after having asked that question, I feel pulled - Having to make a decision about this place, these people that God once led me to learn how to love. I am now full swing into grad school, a place where I wasn't sure this was where I was supposed to be, until the first day, when I met the people in my program and realized there will be people to love here just like there are there. But instead of stopping one completely and beginning another, I am holding on to both. I feel like Stretch Armstrong most days, being pulled in two different directions. Where should I throw all my effort into? Daily, which do I choose to put at the top of my list? And in doing so, one does not get my full attention. That phrase, to the best of your ability, implies that you have to pick something, right? To the best of my ability for school is to concentrate and study whenever it is called for, and it is DAILY. yet when this other thing is in focus, my school work fails to be completed. To the best of my ability for this other thing is to dilligently complete tasks and ensure people continue to be happy doing what they're doing. Yet when school is my focus, this is seemingly unimportant, and I forget to care about the people. Do you let go of one to fully concentrate on the other? Do you attempt to continue, even though you feel like your life is on the rack, being pulled in opposite directions? Do you quit one thing to continue another, to the best of your ability? I pray for direction, but I cannot hear amidst my busy mind. I pray for quietness to hear, yet the thinking doesn't stop. I pray for a thought about the situation, and I cannot tell who said it, me or God? I wish to know how he feels about this so badly. Yet Christ has placed me where I am, here and now, and he knows the schedule I face to get to the path he is leading me to. While money is of no importance as following Christ should be the focus, I trust that the Lord will continue to care for me if that money goes away. But is it even a leap of faith he's asking me to take? | | |
| So quickly.
SO QUICKLY. It has been a blink of an eye since the last I've logged in to update myself on my life, since basically this is for myself and none other. Lessons learned, lessons forgotten, lessons burned forever in my mind. It is good to know that the Lord continues to bless us even when we've not asked, when we've denied him the ability to bless us, when we stop having a willing heart. Even when we forget and lose our focus he chooses to bless us anyways. What a weird concept. But that shouldn't be a reason to continue to not have a willing heart. It should show us that the blessings that we COULD have as we are in tune with Christ are far more than we could ever ask for or expect. Because they are still beyond our imaginations. It is still beyond our imagination to receive blessings when theyre not asked for. When we're in tune, the blessings are amplified, just like music. It's crazy how it works. Its like when we're in tune there's a megaphone and we're on the other side. Everything's just bigger...and louder. And takes more skill to decipher. Music. it does a body good
This is the first time I've free written in 2 months. feel free to banish me from free writing world. or as melissa would say...i should just vomit all over this. :) | | |
| I'm changing this post. While the last post was ok- I decided it was impersonal of me to write about that on here. And for those of you who read it, I'm glad. For those of you who didn't, you snooze.....you finish last. or something like that.
About the title: I wonder if God plans out things in order in our lives so that we can correctly focus on the right things. Like this week in general, great news comes on Monday, not so great news on Wednesday. That way, I am in the essence of celebration when this bad news comes. My focus can either be shifted, or remain concentrated on the already given news, or it can be split. It's hard not to focus on things that are news in the first place. But the fact that the joyful thing came first is kind of entertaining my thoughts right now. Instead of a constant flow of paint with a shout of joy bursting out and becoming subsided once again by the river of suffering, there is this consistent joy that rushes and flows and gets excited. The passion of the river can not be stopped, despite this dam of pain up ahead, and it flows over the pain. Doesn't mean its not still there, causing a block at points, causing almost stagnance at others, but the joy river is never completely stopped. That way instead of having joy amidst pain, only this split second of celebration, it is celebration continually with a spare moments of though about this thorn in my side.
That's how I feel. and I'm still listening to Ants Marching. | | |
| And I'm in awe. What do you do when your dreams align with where God is taking you in life? Can you do anything but scream and thank the Lord above, who is so gracious, for every breath you take? You finally know that he is leading you somewhere...not that you didnt before. But that a path has started that you can actually see where its going, and that it lines up with the desire of your heart...its an impeccible feeling, nothing can describe it. And that's really why this post must end - because my thankfulness is undescribable, and my understanding of the Lord seems just as shallow as it always has been, and my life heads in new directions that I couldn't have even guessed I was going. So...
I feel like...I'll let you know tomorrow. 
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