every time it rains it rains pennies from heaven.

Thanksgiving was perfect. I love my family. I love playing Clue, seeing Dad get so excited over frying a turkey, and cooking with Mom. I love day-long road-trips and hours upon hours spent in a Sonic parking lot in Alexander City, Alabama. I love peeking over to-go bags with Will for a solid four minutes at Outback. I love sharing Icees with Emily at the movie theater and making it awkward by always going in for the straw at the exact time she does. I love how we always buy our Christmas tree all together. I love my siblings, especially because they give in and finally allow such a picture to happen:

oh, how I love them.

eternity is set in my heart.

It's funny, how this works. It seems the more "educated" I become-- (what does this word educated even mean? A lot of different things, a lot of contradictory things...)--the more I realize that I have so many things to learn. That there is so much out there that I know nothing about and so much that I want to know, to see, to read. I read about these ideas-- distributive justice, social compact, cosmopolitanism--ideas that I didn't even realize, or maybe I didn't acknowledge, existed, manifested themselves in others' genious minds, brains, seeming to work at a million miles per hour. A million miles to go, a million hours to do it. A million ways to get there, a million steps, or maybe like five million as a thru-hiker, a two-thousand miler on the Appalachian Trail. I wish it was me, I want it to be me, taking those five million steps, up peaks and down slopes, climbing and crevicing. My soul cleaving just as rock and then being fused again. But I wonder, somehow, if I am capable. If these five million steps, two thousand miles, were meant for me or meant only for my classroom reveries, for my wandering mind, for my lack of concentration on a book, on a novel I do care about but do not wish to discuss. Instead I take these fifty minutes to write a million words (or not, I wish), to try to make sense of a sense of adventure deep in the wells of my soul's desire that seems so real yet so strongly at odds with a fear. Less a fear of the wild, less a fear of the elements than a fear of man. A fear of failure, a fear of incompletion, a fear that at the end of my life I will have done things, I will have done the Lord's will, but that all of these things will remain vastly unfinished. Unrefined, not beautiful at all. God makes all things beautiful in His time, and I so want my life to be one of these things, and even though I'm sure that my wanderings will be made beautiful, I fear that only God will see this beauty and that no one else will get that, and even though that's all that really matters, God glorified, I still fear ugliness. I fear the lack of the aesthetic. I fear that my adventure will not be pleasing to the eye, I want five million beautiful steps, not just some dirt under my shoes. I know the Lord has this for me. He knows I want dirt under my toenails.

note to self, regarding vegan cheese...

investigate before purchasing. do not buy the one i bought at kroger. here are some crucial reasons why:

(1) taste: it tastes like nothing. nothing at all.
(2) form: it may melt like cheese, but it doesn't stay melted. it hardens quickly.
(3) consistency: it is rubbery and chewy. bleh.
(4) capability: it bounces. yes, it bounces when it hits the floor.

needless to say, i hear there are some very good vegan cheeses out there. apparently just not the kind i purchased.

process.

i am in the processing stage. walking around athens, i feel like i'm having an out-of-body experience. i'm not really sure what's going on most of the time, but i'm trusting.

revelation: i think i'm a little bit more like Christ than when i left athens. i am finding myself surprised by my reactions to certain situations. and this must be because i am changed. the Lord has changed my heart this summer. melted; softened it in the right places; in the best ways.

i know that the Lord has gone before me this semester. and i'm excited about that.

i got cheerwine in a bottle today. so good. i got cheerwine in cans from kroger. so so good.

this version of the doxology keeps coming to me as i seek to understand, as i continually realize that i am not capable of understanding. only the Lord is right now. who am i to question His choices, His will, His ways?

oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom & knowledge of God
how unsearchable are His judgments,
how unknowable are His paths
who knows the mind of our God?
& who can bring cousel to Him?
who has given to God that He should repay?

for from Him,
through Him,
& to Him
is everything.

to God be the glory forever & ever.
amen.

from romans 11.

call & response.

session 1: middle school.
He calls us beautiful, loved, and worthy, something that God gave me to speak over a bunch of the girls who were at camp this week. He is all we need, and it is in Him that we are whole and complete, not in anything or anyone else.

session 2: 4th-6th grade.
there's something about this age that makes for a huge range of interests, experiences, and maturity levels. because of that, this week was a little hard. God wants to know you, specifically and intimately. He wants a relationship with you, a true friendship. He wants it to be personal.

session 3: 2nd-4th grade.
a beautiful bunch of kids, who put joy in my heart that i wasn't sure i'd be able to have after this past year. at this age, these girls were so interested in who Jesus was and what He was to them. He loves you, He hears your prayers, He is with you wherever you go. He died for you, so that you could live.

session 4: buddy camp.
while it's a little more difficult with the adults around, these two days were good, and i was so encouraged by some of the parents who prayed with their kids, who painted pictures that had to do with God in arts and crafts, and who were insistent upon setting the same example for their kids that Jesus sets for all of us.

certainly the most adrenaline-pumping moment yet this summer happened on friday, when a dad ran out of the ocean with his son, whose foot was so cut open it looked like a piece of it was missing. i was the one who saw it, so i took off running and praying up the beach to a walkie talkie. i called the nurse, sat the boy down, and did some first aid action. i asked stafford, a fellow staff member, to talk to him (we threw out as many questions about swimming as we could come up with) while i rinsed it with water and gauzed it upon. i could barely wrap it though, i was a little shaky. after sending him off with the nurse (he eventually got five stitches), i was still a little shaken, and it took me about a day to be feeling back to normal; i was weirdly emotional about random things for about 24 hours.

this whole situation though is proof that God has everything happen for a reason, and i was specifically placed there at that moment so i could respond to this situation. originally, i was going to miss buddy camp for a wedding, but decided that camp probably needed me there. then, i was on rescue boat duty but the motor was acting up, which is the whole reason that i was even on the beach at that time. not to say God needed me there (He could've easily done it without me), but He certainly used me.

i am so pumped for senior session, which starts on monday.
i can't wait for God to meet these high schoolers like they've never experienced before.

also, God just keeps showing me what a blessing this staff has been. God continues to confirm things through them, bless me with conversations that really point me to Him, and to find that sense of understanding in having the same struggles or learning the same things about God...sometimes the hard way. God has been using a lot of them to reveal things to me and to really purify and refine me this summer.


they are such a blessing; i see God's face in them and hear God's voice from them.

fiddler crabs & mud pie.

it's weird to think i've been at camp for a month now. God has been teaching me some crazy things since i arrived in south carolina; some of them are actual, tangible, physical skills while others are purely Him revealing Himself to me day in and day out, moment by moment.

the ocean: a place where i never spent much time and therefore never much enjoyed before i got here. i always disliked the saltiness and the sandiness of it, and the marine life really creeped me out. in a few weeks i have come to love the feeling of being coated in seawater and to truly enjoy laying in the sand, no towel included. (at camp, the towel monster eats any towels that come to the beach.) and while i may still be uncomfortable about the jellyfish, stingrays, and sharks with me in the water, i have found that even the kids who are native to the beach aren't crazy about what's swimming beneath them. when i swim in the ocean, God speaks to me and over me, which is pretty cool. He tells me that i shouldn't be afraid, that He is immediately close, and that He's holding onto me.

the place: i know where i am, surprinsgly enough. seabrook, kiawah, johns island, james island, edisto island, daniels island, deveaux bank, botany bay, stono river, rockville, mt pleasant, wadmawlaw island. these all mean something to me now.

the wildlife: i have seen some alligators and know a little bit about how they get their prey. i have learned the names of some fish; anchovies, silversides, pompineaux, whitings. i know the difference between an american and a cownose stingray. i can identify a few jellyfish; cannonball, moon, man of war. i see pelicans plung in the water to scoop up fish. i see dolphins a lot; the other day i saw a few from about ten feet away. beautiful.

the boat: while i am by no means a sailor, i know the parts of a sailboat, i can rig it up, and i can sail it. i still have trouble conceptualizing and understanding the theory, which could either be because i didn't grow up coastal or just because feeling the wind and knowing the current doesn't come naturally to me. but i'm learning! and God is being so cool through it all, because i'm learning a lot about His word and His nature by being out on open water. first of all, paul sailed all around during his ministry; so i'm learning to do something that one of the great apostles of Christ did, which is pretty sweet. (i'm also doing like the disciples when seigning, dragging a giant net through the water). Jesus preached from a boat, His disciples feared the storm, He calmed it. the waves crash and the wind blows, and i get scared. but God calms storms today like He did then and like He says He will. and i suppose being out there makes these verses more real for me.

the call: God has been so faithful in confirming that this is the place i'm supposed to be this summer. He has been sending me the signals since the first day i got here, and they've only been building as the days have passed. His patience, His promises, the idea of idolatry, listening and waiting on God, beauty and love and worth; tons of things God spoke into me and taught me this past year were just springing up in worship and conversation. Scripture has confirmed it, and the Holy Spirit confirms it nearly every morning.

"in the morning, i will sing of Your loving kindness and at night, i will sing of Your faithfulness"

i haven't even started on the kids and what God has done these first two sessions, but i will get there. because God is producing fruit, and i'm getting to witness some amazing moments.

my feet are always dirty, and it's amazing.
-laura

and there are phosphorscent phytoplankton. when i hang my feet off the dock and move my toes, they light up in water.

sparkle and glow.