Love, Love, Here We Are

If you love something, you’re probably going to have to let it go at some point. But, you can still be friends. Let me elaborate –

You can’t be a miser with your love. You just can’t. It’s not fair. If you keep the objects of your love too close to yourself, you’re not helping them; you’re just being selfish. You are restricting them from doing the things they want and need to do, whether they are people, animals, vegetables, minerals, books, or miscellaneous. And at the same time, you'll never be able to expand and get out of your comfort zone, because your comfort zone is right in arm’s reach at all times, which is nice, but you never grow that way, because you don’t need to.

You have to be willing and able to give away pieces of your heart and not expect anything back if you're going to feel love. 

I’m not saying that if you feel like you could maybe potentially one day love something, you need to let it go now, because you don’t and you shouldn’t. Love is a feeling and an action (and a virtue!) and if you don’t let yourself have it, you miss out and then you’re a terrible person living a miserable life. 

What I am saying is that you can’t keep everything you love right next to you all the time and forever. You can love it and you can keep it right inside of your heart, but chances are, at some point, something might have to change. The change might not even be that dramatic, but it might be.

One of my most favorite song lyrics ever is from Derek Webb: "Love's no politician, because it listens carefully." I don't mean to pick on politicians, but to focus on the listening carefully. Love listens carefully and considers what the party being loved needs, even if you would rather not, even if it makes you cry.

Letting go of things you love doesn’t mean love is gone or leaving. Sometimes it’s an expression of that exact love: letting go means you’re allowing the object of your love to grow or you’re giving it the room it needs to live its life. Letting something you love go means that the way you express your love changes. And a lot of times that’s sad and hard. I can’t really think of many comforting words to say about it.

If I’d had the option at the time, I wouldn’t have gone to college. High school would have lasted forever and I would have been in youth group forever and I wouldn’t have ever had to move out of my house. And, out of (tough) love for me, my parents made me pick a college and a major and then they kicked me right out of this joint...in a kind and necessary way. And they have supported me financially throughout the whole adventure, which has been most supremely helpful. 

Out of my vanity, I’m just going to assume that my parents wanted to keep me forever just as I wanted to stay with them forever. Both parties in this situation had to show love in a way they didn’t want to. My parents didn’t want to make me leave and I didn’t want to leave. But then we both grow (mostly me; I like to tell people that I blossomed when I got to college) and it was good. I would have remained immature and trivial if I had stayed in my pink basement bedroom and taken high school classes forever (not that I'm never immature or trivial now, but I like to think that I'm less so). When both of us showed that love - the kind that lets go (even though sometimes it doesn't have a choice), we both benefitted in ways we didn't know was possible until we actually did the letting go. 

However, once you let go of something you love, you can still be friends! Generally, just because things have to change doesn’t mean they have to permanently end. And that is a nice thing to know.

Instead of being discouraged by knowing that you have to let go of pieces of your heart, find happiness and hope. Giving away pieces of your heart and loving in a let-go kind of way is like a flower girl in a wedding, and, although it's nicer to have all of the petals organized and consolidated in one central place (the flower girl's basket), once the petals have been scattered by her all over the church floor, the petals are spread out and the whole church is full of beauty and flowery fragrance. The entire church being scattered with flower petals is better than all of them in one specified place, and it's the same with love. 

If you love a person, why would you not tell them? (within reason – stalkers and other creepy situations don’t count) and why would you not tell them often? 

Let love be an bubbly fountain in your heart, because then you can never run out. Don't be a love-Grinch. 

This is quite, quite easier said than done: take it from a girl who cried (and by cried, I mean sobbed my poor, tortured eight-year-old heart out) when she had to throw away broken shoes. It’s so much easier and more convenient to be clingy and stingy and keep things forever, even if they’re broken and if it's for the good of the world that they go into the trash can. 

Let's keep it simple. I have a niece (she's not "technically" my niece, but I have claimed her as my niece and she has claimed me as her aunt, so it's real love). She just turned three and she is so beautiful and joyful. She doesn't live in Clemson anymore, but I get to see her when she is here. One of the more recent times she was here, I told her I loved her very much and I'm sure she thought that was very nice but then I realized she may not know what love exactly is. So I told her: "love means that I want to hug you all the time." And she was okay with that definition. So I am, too, and I think that's how I want to define love from now on. 

It means I want to hug you all the time: whether we live in the same apartment complex or on different continents, whether we've known each other since we were born but we never get to see each other now or we just met last August but now we're inseparable, whether I got you a Christmas present or I completely forgot, whether you like Justin Bieber or Dietrich Bonhoeffer (or both). Love is complicated and hard, but no matter what kind of love it is, and no matter if I have to let you go or not, I just want to hug you all the time. 

Love,
Lauralicious

A Non-Christmas-Related Lecture

I slept for eleven hours the other night (that's a lot of hours and I am aware of that), and at some point during all of those hours I dreamed about getting the planks out of our eyes and how God is the great intercessor and also contact lenses and I wrote it all down when I woke up so that I could blog about it. So this is me trying to figure out what I meant when I was half-awake and wrote down those things: 

In Matthew 7, Jesus says to take out the plank in your own eye before you point out and pick on the speck in someone else's eye. The only (physical) things I've ever had in my eye are little eyelashes that sometimes get stuck on accident, and contact lenses. The plank in my eye is the exact opposite of having contacts. Contacts are there to help me see, and they are small and inconspicuous and clear, and I put them there on purpose, and no one can tell that they are in my eye unless I say something about them, whereas a plank in my eye is a huge two-by-four that is just all of a sudden in my eyeball and I keep whacking people over with it because it sticks out so far. There is quite a contrast between contacts and planks. 

We talked about this passage in Sunday School when I was little enough so that I understand what's going on, but right now my main question is: does having a plank in your eye not kind of hurt? Because I mean...it's wood. Wood is from trees. And it seems to me that it would be at least a little bit painful to have a piece of tree in your eye. But that part was never addressed in Sunday School. 

Maybe I judge people because it does hurt to have a plank in my eye, and I think that if I point out what's in someone else's eye, the pain in mine will go away. However, that's the opposite of the truth. 

Maybe the reason I judge people so often is to defend myself from being judged. It's like a coping mechanism. Maybe I act like I'm better than other people because I hope sincerely that I am (but know that I'm not). Maybe I judge people because if they go down, I go up. Maybe I act like I'm the absolute measure of ultimate personhood because I need reinforcement to know that I'm a worthwhile human. Maybe I judge people because if I make people feel badly enough about themselves, then we can all feel badly about ourselves together, instead of just me. 

I'm really judgmental.  So much so that sometimes I think that the sins I struggle with are better sins to struggle with than whatever everyone else does. And that's just crazy and wrong. 

Jesus says, "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." 

But I don't know how to take the log out of my own eye. I can't. I legitimately cannot. Even if I knew how to, I couldn't do it. My arms are quite too weak to pick up a dang two-by-four and lift it out of my eye. And if I could just barely do it, I would leave so many splinters all around my eye and face that 1) no one would recognize me, 2) people would probably think my face was petrified, and 3) where would I put it? Let's be honest, I would probably drop it on my foot. And then I would have a broken foot and a splintered face and that's not much better than how I started out. 

Remember how I said earlier that I judge because I want and hope and wish to be a worthwhile person? I think that, in order to have the log/plank taken out of my eye, I have to realize that I am not. I am not worthwhile, I am not perfectly adequate or even a little bit adequate, I am the worst of all the people in the whole wide universe. I say that not to be hyperbolic or dramatic or exaggeratory; I say it because I am. I wish I wasn't but I am. 

When He saves my life, Jesus takes out the plank from my eye, He makes me clean and not sloppy, He makes me warm, and He makes me His. And that's all that I could ever hope to be because that's better than being an adequate person. It's being in the presence of the One who decided one day to invent daffodils just because He could and that is incredible. 

So. God, being the great intercessor (that's the specific wording used to describe Him in the dream), takes the plank out of my eye. He takes it out cleanly and then makes sure to carefully take out any splinters or remaining wood paraphernalia around my ocular area. 

He can't take it out until I let my guard down and realize that I am not qualified to judge people, even if I really don't like what they're doing. I don't know their whole story. When I know that I am the worst of these sinners and am deeply regretful and aware of it and know that the only way that I can do anything even remotely good is by Him, Jesus comes to make me a different person: a nice person who genuinely cares about people instead of just the information that they can give me. And then I don't need to judge. Because I'm made new and clean and I'm fine. And what other people are up to becomes so much less relevant to me. I have no reason to try to push myself up because I'm as content as I can be just where I am. 

I know that it's Christmastime right now and this post is not about Christmas, and I almost decided to save it and post it later when there are no Yuletide celebrations going on, but then I decided to, because I have a plank in my eye all the time: January through December. I was at Walmart the other day observing the franticness of everyone scrambling to pick up cheap presents for people in their lives (was I buying presents? Nope. I was buying mascara and milk), and I was most definitely judging everyone. I was judging the checkout woman who also works at Harcombe, and I was judging the overweight man wearing three separate camouflage articles of clothing, and I was judging the lady in line in front of me for not being able to make her baby quiet. And that's just terrible. I like babies so I don't know why I was being so vindictive towards her in my head. None of those people did anything to me to deserve my judgment....nd then I dreamed about blogging about this so I just had to. So here we are. 

Love,
Lauralicious

Lamenting the Loss of Lovely Lula Mae

Dear friends, 

This week has been hard for me. Not only is it been finals week, but my most dear and sassy automobile friend, Lula Mae, was replaced by a beautiful forest green Subaru with power windows and a key fob. I'm told that his name is Wilfred. 

Lula Mae's name is Lula Mae after my great-grandmother, who is quite hilariously spunky. I love my great-grandmother (we call her GG) much more than I love Lula Mae and for better reasons, but they both helped me to get here today. It's cheesy but true. 

I've always wanted a nicer car. I've had Lula Mae (the car) since I could drive, and we've had some really interesting times together. Not all were good, like the time I hit a man named Derek (he was fine, thank goodness! It was quite traumatic though), but nonetheless we enjoyed our quality time together. 

To me Lula Mae represents an era of growth. She harbored me while I sang to very weird Canadian songs, did an eleven-point turn once in the dark in Six Mile after a high school basketball game, had some weird 70s/middle eastern dance parties, sometimes cried, got multiple parking tickets, had interesting conversations with friends, backed into a mailbox and later a telephone pole, bonded with siblings and roommates, talked to myself a lot, drove to my first Camp interview and then to Camp every week all summer for three summers...and now we have gone our separate ways. 

And guys, I miss her. I miss my baby. She didn't like me very much, as made evident by her jerkiness and her engine light being on for the past two and a half years. To be honest, I didn't like her all that much either. My favorite adjective for her was "dinky" because that's what she was. She was not in great shape in any way. I once tried to describe her as "champagne" colored, but then was told that she's not classy enough to be champagne. She's beer-colored, and everybody knows that champagne is always better and prettier and more classy than beer. I was sometimes embarrassed to be with her (that's mean but true). She made all of these creaky clunky noises whenever I went over a speed bump (and there are five speed bumps to get to my apartment, so that's kind of a lot of creakiness and clunkiness) and didn't like to obey me when I put on the brakes. I complained the whole time we were together. But now that she's gone, I kind of miss her and her crabby self. We were spunky together. Do not get me wrong, because I really really like Wilfred. I've always wanted a Subaru (do not tell Lula this, but I've been wanting to get out of this relationship for the past two and a half years) and now I have one with all of the amenities that Lula Mae didn't have. Wilfred's engine light isn't on, and that is a blessing for sure. 

Since I started driving Lula Mae, I've changed a lot. I'm not going to go through each change I have undergone, but I am no longer a timid sixteen-year old closet sock-skating enthusiast. I'm much more open about my great love for sock-skating and, even better, I'm myself much more often these days.

I'm not saying I want Lula Mae back, because I don't. I'm past that point in my life. I'm just here to say that our time together was more valuable than I could have ever imagined it being until we no longer had each other.

One of my most favorite bands, The Head and the Heart, says, "All things must end, darlin," and it's true. They must. They do and they did and they will. I am here to commemorate the time that Lula Mae and I got to spend together. Transportation was always an adventure with her. 

So here's to Wilfred and new transportation adventures! Adventure is out there! 

Love,
Lauralicious

Salvation and School Supplies

I went to Walmart the other day and school supplies are on sale you guys! So I've already bought most of what I need for next semester. I feel so prepared. And that is a nice feeling. 

I love school supplies and office supplies a lot. It's because I love being organized. Does that mean that I am an organized person? No. It does not. My brain is always scattered. I think that is exactly why I like the things that surround me to be somewhat organized. 

I like paperclips and pens and thumbtacks and staplers and highlighters and scotch tape and sticky notes (I really really love sticky notes and use them all the time for everything) and page marker tab things and Sharpies. The whole works. I love it all. 

I was studying for a sign language exam last night, and I used a page marker tab thing (I don't know exactly what to call them) to flag a page for myself for later.

Here is a visual! Look how useful they are! 

Then later, I accidentally closed my book, and if it were not for that orange tab sticking out of the side of my book, I would have had to spend hours, if not days, searching for that one page that describes the proper way to ask a yes/no question in sign language. So I was thankful for the tab/page marker. And then I ended up using it over and over again because I had to keep going back to that page (but now I can successfully ask a yes/no question in sign language, among many other things!). 

When I am studying and feeling stressed, stress automatically translates into my emotions, so in addition to feeling stressed about school work, I feel melancholy and agitated at the same time. It's very weird. Last night, I was feeling this way. I was feeling sad about humanity, and then I realized something joyful. Maybe it's my crazy coming out, but I think that I am like one of the tab/page marker things. Jesus puts a tab on my page and comes back to me over and over until my page is dog-eared but He just keeps coming back to me because He loves me. He has called me by name, and I am His. 


Fear not, for I have redeemed you;  I have called you by name, you are mine.
... For I am the Lord your God,  the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
... Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.

..."You are my witnesses," declares the Lord, "and my servants whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He."
...
11 "I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior. I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses," declares the Lord, "and I am God."
... I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

 - Isaiah 43

This has potentially been my shortest blog post ever. It just looks long because of Isaiah, but those are not my words (they're Isaiah's words; I just really like them).

Just remember: you is kind, you is smart, you is important. And that is because Jesus makes you that way. Without Him, you're a blank page. Blank pages are highly frowned upon. They are helpless and terrible, and blank pages can't write themselves. Even if they try. They just can't. 

Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith, and He writes on our page and puts a tab/page marker on it - on us - on you, on me - so that He can keep coming back to us, again and again, because we are precious in His eyes, and honored, and He loves us. He says it Himself. He will not remember our sins, because that's what He decided to do. Because He is great and awesome (not awesome in a "oh that's cool" kind of way, but awesome in a "awe" kind of way. He's the best and ultimate kind of awesome). 

That's even better than already having school supplies for next semester. 

Love, 
Lauralicious