consuming fire.

At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." This phrase, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of things that are shaken - that is, things that have been made - in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and be not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God, for our God is a consuming fire.
Hebrews 12:26-29

listen somewhere else

because I don't know how to put music on here. But this band, Mumford and Sons, has some of the most beautiful, honest to the bone music I've heard in a long time.
A White Blank Page

Can you lie next to her
And give her your heart
As well as your body
And can you lie next to her
And confess your love
As well as your folly
And can you kneel before the king
And say I'm clean, I'm clean

But tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart
Oh tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart

A white blank page and a swelling rage
You did not think when you sent me to the brink
You desired my attention but denied my affections

Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life
Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life

reposted from my friend tracy's blog. she has a knack for finding and/or writing beautifully honest words that makes one think. and by knack i mean that she pursues these words with tenacity. this is just one of many things i like about her.

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.”

Arundhati Roy

jai dee

Abby: "P. Lauren, why you got such a good, good, good, good heart?"

Me: "God gave me a new heart. And it makes me love you guys so much it hurts."

Abby: "Yeah, me too."

i know it's painfully cliche to want to be a hippie. but still, i think it'd be nice.

source

probably the 2nd best birthday card i've received.

To P’ double crazy Lauren

Happy birthday to you you look like a monkey and you smell like one too. I wise you had a wonderful day in BSF.

from master crazy monkey Daniel

an epilogue

to the post before my last post:

God gave me a miracle. one of transformed hearts. another's and my own. in a school library. apologies and prayers and tears and hugs. 

just in case you were wondering.

just now

just now i found 47 pages of a single-spaced word document. the first half, to which it follows that there is a second half, is comprised entirely of letters from a boy to a girl. and this girl is finding herself in a place where sometimes the loneliness presses down hard on her chest. a loneliness comprised from the should have beens. more accurately, the could have beens. these words written years ago - they are easier to dismiss. but your letters coming into my todays. well, i just don't know what to say anymore. so i don't.

"it's like so many things with you and me: i don't know a lot about it, but i like that you like it." - my head, my heart, and i took a vote sir: we concur that we dislike your simple eloquence. we don't trust ourselves alone with it.

thoughts on perspective and some new perspective on old thoughts.

I've been reading this devotional book called My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. I'm quite keen on it. Apparently, you're supposed to get it for high school or college graduation. Guess my friends and family missed that boat. Anyway, it's made its way into my hands now. Here are some excerpts my highlighter found:

"God puts His saints where they will glorify Him, and we are no judges at all of where that is."

"The call of God is like the call of the sea; no one hears it but the one who has the nature of the sea in him."

This next one especially changed my perspective this past week. I can see now how I had become so focused on doing what God wanted me to do that I was neglecting spending personal time with Him; I was ignoring my main responsibility and my sole source of comfort, encouragement, strength, and joy. I was so focused on maintaining "righteous anger" over things that have happened to the children that I chose to harbor unforgiveness rather than strengthening my relationship with the One who loves the children infinitely more than I'd ever be capable of doing.

"We have to maintain our relationship with Him no matter what happens. We must never allow anything to injure our relationship with God; if it does get injured, we must take the time and get it put right. The main thing about Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the atmosphere produced by that relationship. That is all God asks us to look after, and it is the one thing that is being constantly assailed."

God has been asking some heavy things of me recently. Heavy but very simple actually. He's been asking me to not only forgive but to actively love two people who in my opinion are destroying the children I cherish. It's proving to be a difficult lesson - one I'd rather not learn, but my Lord is asking it of me, and so I'm beginning to comply. Tonight I asked the manager if I could pray with her. God had laid it on my heart yesterday, and I could feel God giving me boldness to do this thing I wouldn't have thought myself capable of even as recently as last week. Even just hours later, I could see God working in her. Changing her attitude. God is faithful. I'm praying for a miracle. A breaking of their hearts of stone and of new hearts of flesh transplanted. That, or on the days when I'm really upset, justice for them. Yeah, a miracle sounds a lot nicer. That's what I'm believing for.

It feels a little strange - being the "adult" with someone much older than me. To address issues of passive aggressiveness, to encourage, to initiate conversation even. I'm realizing the job God has for me here is ever expanding. It's actually kind of exciting when viewed from that perspective.

So here's to my God for whom nothing is impossible. I know He's an adept heart surgeon - the beat in my chest is all the proof I need. So I wait expectantly for the miracles that are soon to come.

liaisons with madness

stars dangle on stings, 

sedately descending from their dome, 

pendulous in their process of hypnosis

spider orbs of light

the silken threads connect each to another

star trails

scratches on the undark sky

eighty-eight constellations 

crawl across and through 

the depth of the empyrean