One Day I'll Have to be a Grown Up (But Not Today)

Every Monday morning, I go to an elementary school in Seneca to observe a first grade class (and then a preschool special ed class!) and learn how to be a teacher. I love getting to actually be in a school for a little bit every week and I love getting to wear teacher clothes. I didn't go last week because of spring break, so when I got back this week, the first grade teacher I help asked me what I did for break. I told her that I went to Pennsylvania to visit some people I love and then popped over to Washington, DC for a couple of hours on the way home. She got this kind of sad look on her face and told me to enjoy being young and free. She kept on repeating herself and telling me to take advantage of it and to make sure I love it. I could tell that she was majorly yearning for the things that I have now: my flexibility, my independence, my innocence. After this had gone on for a minute or so, I was a little annoyed. 

I loved spring break. I loved getting to see my niece and I loved getting to spend time with friends without having the feeling of homework looming and dooming over my shoulder. I loved getting to be in Philly, because I'm definitely a small town mouse without much city experience. I was fascinated by all the goings-on of the city: playgrounds and fish stores, churches and compacting trash cans, train stations and big beautiful old majestic city halls, and so many people walking around. The city was exactly how my mind feels 88% of the time. It was engaging and busy and you had to know what you were doing in order to navigate at all.

Everything wasn't completely cookies and sunshine the whole time though. I was tired a lot during the trip and I got grumpy at one point. We had to drive eleven hours to PA in a minivan with six people and I kept falling asleep with my mouth wide open and waking up a little embarrassed and with a really dry and funny-tasting mouth. And in the smack dab middle of our nation's capital on the very first day of spring, I fell off of a bike (not because I'm hardcore but because I forgot how to ride it) twice, and that was significantly more embarrassing than sleeping with my mouth open. I also realized about five days in to the trip that I really missed fruit.

Overall, though, it was a great spring break. I loved most of the minutes of it. It was better than working (even if this teacher's job is hanging out with first graders, which I think is awesome) and going home to a bunch of little people asking you to make them food every night. 

I had initially wanted to (nicely) sass her after she kept telling me to enjoy being young. I wanted to say say, "Hey lady, you had your chance." I wanted to remind her that she was young once and she should have enjoyed it because now she's older and she gets to have nice things like a job and a disposable income and she is settled. 

But it's not nice to sass your elders, and she wasn't trying to make me feel defensive when she told me to enjoy my youth. She was giving me some legitimately good advice for my future: to genuinely enjoy this time where I'm just floating around and riding trains like a Narnia character, because one day I'll get to be a grown-up like her and I won't get to go back. 

I think that being a grown up is kind of like shaving your legs: once you start, you can't stop. Or at least, you shouldn't. 

Love,
Lauralicious

Love God, Love Campers, Love Camp

Camp is a wonderful and magical place. It has been my place of residency for the past three summers. It is the place where I gained my self-confidence and my college weight. I was there when it became real to me that I can't do anything without Jesus to do it for me. I plan to continue working there until they make me leave.

So I was asked to work last weekend and I did. It was wonderful. I usually learn some major life lesson over the span of a summer at Camp, but I learned this one in just one little weekend. I learned that I'm not God, which is something that one would think I already had learned after nearly twenty years on this earth. But apparently not.

While at Camp, I got to hang out with two lovely girls who were both a little older than me. One of them was really stubborn. I got frustrated easily with her because I wanted her to obey me more often. She didn’t like to obey me, so we butted heads a little because I'm stubborn too, and I didn't want to back down or compromise, because compromise means you don't win. 

But then I remembered that this is Camp, not a war. I'm here to help my campers reach their full potential and be their happiest. If a camper and I are not agreeing on something, I should try to work it out calmly and smoothly before I go all crazy stubborn on her. 

I asked myself why I feel this need to be right and obeyed. Is it really in the best interest of my camper if I forget why I asked her to do something, but cannot let it go until she does it? I realized that I want people to blindly obey me, at the cost of maybe even their lives.

This is the part when I realized that I'm not God. I wish that everyone around me would bow and be humbled and confess all of their secrets to me. I wish that everyone did what I asked them to do at the exact minute that I thought about maybe asking them to do it. I want to be God because He is the ultimate, and I want to be the ultimate. I want to be who people want and need to spend time with for the rest of their lives. I want people to depend on me, and I will give them grace if I feel like it. I want people to beg me for mercy and tell me how wrong they were. I want to be an authority on everything and I want to be right all the time. 

I realize that I sound like a terrible monster, but I'm just speaking the truth. This is what my sinful heart desires. I normally act like a sweet person whose heart is kind and innately good, but I'm not. Just knowing that I want these things shows me why I couldn't be God, because He does not use His power in this way at all. He uses His power to save me even when I continually don't deserve it, and to give me grace when I am being horrible (which is always). 

I get to worship Him. Getting to spend time worshipping Him and being around Him at all is lovely to me. I get strength just from the shadow of His wing. I am hoping that sticking around Him all the time for the rest of forever will translate to me being a more gracious person, because as a camp counselor who isn't God, my job is to show the grace that I am constantly being given to all the people around me. 

My campers are at Camp to enjoy being who they are, and I am at Camp to enjoy who they are. I get to show them how heard, wonderful, and special they are. I can only do this if I am actually loving them, not obsessing over if they are obeying me or not. I get to live a life of love, not of criticism. I choose love today, and I choose it now for the rest of forever.

Love,

Lauralicious

Dog Days are Over

There is a band called Florence and the Machine and they sing a song called "Dog Days are Over." It's a pretty cool song and they're a pretty cool band. They've been around since I was in high school and one time Glee covered "Dog Days are Over," which is why I know it at all. I heard it again the other day for the first time in a long while and listened to the words. 

I was struck by how much they sounded to me like I feel when I think about my salvation -

Happiness hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her stuck but still no turning back
She hid under corners and she hid under beds 
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with her drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming
So you better run

Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father
Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You can't carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses?
Cause here they come

And I never wanted anything from you
Except everything you had and what was left after that too
Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back
Struck from a great height from someone who should know better than that

Jesus wants all of me, no reservations, no hesitations. I can try to hide but He loves me and knows that I need Him and He comes and picks me up and hugs me. He wants my emotion and my sense. He wants me to commit the rest of my life to Him. He wants all of me and then more. Every day starting with the day He is mine is filled with the joy of the Lord. He wants me to throw off what hinders me and run run run to Him. He wants me to bring with me my life, my family, my concerns, my baggage. 

How awesome is it that something that this band wrote concerning something else is, to me, so obviously about Jesus and how drastically life changes when I let Him in to mine? God glorifies Himself through a great variety of ways, and in everything, even if we don't catch it. He created everything for His own glory. And I love getting to see that. 

The dog days are over. Days can still be sad or no fun or hard, but I have a hope and a joy that I never had before that gets me through things and gives me a reason for life. 

love,
Lauralicious