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laurakram
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Name: Laura
Gender: Female
Interests: Jesus, photography, my family, summer, Baylor, my amazing friends, kids, pi phi, learning about people
Expertise: eating any and all kinds of unhealthy food unceasingly
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Member Since:
5/11/2005
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| i'm taking 17 hours, mostly upper level courses. how do i not ever do homework? i just omit my homework every night. how is this ok and how do i stop? secondly, i watched the philippines dvd today and i enjoyed it. although, i must say i looked quite rough. i just keep telling myself it doesn't matter. also, spencer called to tell me that someone beat my record in geometry wars. this will be corrected tomorrow afternoon when i play until i get atleast 41,000 points. and... i'm going camping sometime.. i don't know when. and i might go on a mission trip to india over thanksgiving break. i know i know. i have been on the fence about whether or not i should go. i REALLY want to go.. i have wanted to go to india ever since tom wolfe spoke about revivals in india at this mission conference i went to in the spring... and now i am getting the chance to. but what does God want? i can't figure it out. it just feels like i have to wait and stop rushing things, so that's what i've been trying to do. this fall is so much different than last fall bc i'm not in a relationship. i didn't realize when we were together how much i let myself miss out on. long distance really is demanding... ok, maybe the distance wasn't so long. i really need a date to howdy. i can't think of anyone new who i could ask. i don't want to get set up with someone and i don't want it to be awkward and i don't really want to ask a k sig. i love those boys, but i'm just arond them all the time and they are boys in the truest sense of the word...and i'm pretty sure there are other boys here... maybe? maybe not? countdown to grey's anatomy...14 days | | |
| we have a three day weekend. baylor's first labor day off in the history of man and woman kind.
haha.
my ipod broke last weekend. it would not turn on. i tried plugging it in for hours and turning it on again. then... i prayed about it. yeah, that's right. i asked God to bring my ipod back to life. it is my favorite thing ever. then... i had a dream that my ipod came back to life! i turned it on and it started to work. then i woke up from my nap and realized my ipod was still dead. well, today i just got back from class and i started yelling at my ipod, you know, just joking around with my roommate begging it to turn on. and... it did.
and my roommate just dried her pit-stains with her hairdryer. yeah, chi o.
katie, i know you would appreciate this story of giving and taking away.. and of teri drying her pit stains. i miss your smiling face! | | |
| sooo i moved back to waco on tuesday! it has been so much fun and i love my new apt. coming from where i was to a brand new place is so great. i can really appreciate it since i lived in a dump last year. i am so blessed.
that has really been obvious the last few days. i am so incredibly blessed with the best friends i could ask for. I live with two of my very good friends... i hung out with megan a lot the past two days and i am so thankful that God has put her in my life. we have such a great history though we've only been friends for two years. i have gotten in huge fights with her - the biggest fights i've been in the past 7 years - and she is one of my favorite people in this world (these were night screaming/name-calling fights. just major disagreements). and she is probably one of the most valuable people in my life. God has put her in my life to hold me up when things got real bad last year and she was there to talk when all my other friends think everything's fine and dandy and i don't need help. and then there's katie. oh my sweet katie... how i've gone the whole summer without seeing her?? i don't know. we have the most fun together and can spend hours together and never get sick of eachother. i love talking to her about all things important and spiritual, etc. she is the most fun, free-spirited, get-into-trouble-with friend.
then there's all the other girls who i am close with but not as close as the previous two who i absolutely adore and care for so much. katie, teri, carrie, sav, elle... who i have such a great respect for. i admire each of them for something different. everyone one of my friends is truly a gift.
we are all wonderful and we are all single (almost all)... seriously... why???
just kidding.. that's not that important. it was just the topic de jeur ( i totally winged it on that spelling).
and now i must go to bed because i have to get up because sav and elle are making all of us pancakes....and then i have to go to dallas to go to the annual dave concert with greer.... it's a hard knock life
celebrate we will ohh cuz life is short but sweet for certain we climb on two by two and be sure that all these days continue things we cannot see | | |
| ok. so about the philippines. it was amazing. mindonao is beautiful and the people are fascinating.
i was emotional the entire trip because i had so many things weighing down on me. i felt alone a lot on the trip because i had no one to REALLY talk to. and i did get close with a few of the girls on the trip, but that was at the very end of the trip. so i had no one to talk to when i felt like i was going to explode during the middle of the trip. it was my first mission trip, my first time to a third world country, and a few other firsts. it was my first time preaching in front of a crowd of people. and those things caused a lot of stress. good stress and bad stress. i think i was almost bi-polar for about three days! haha.
i became very aware of the spiritual warfare during the trip. satan was constantly putting lies in my ears, and it freaked me out!? i was thinking..."this can't really be satan, i've never really dealt with satan before" and i know what you're thinking - it sounds crazy. and i felt weird realizing that it was satan. but, hey, he exists. and the biggest lie that he tells the world is he doesn't exist. and it wasn't my flesh bringing me down, so i knew it was him. i had built this trip up so much and all he wanted to do was ruin it for me and for God. he was throwing everything at me.....insecurities, fear, beef with people on the trip, anything he could find, but with a lot of prayer i was able to resist him and the lies he was telling me. it was pretty overwhelming for a while, but victory is so sweet. and it's a good thing that i learned the things i did about spiritual warfare and how to recognize it because. it's convenient to think it's just us and God going through life, but we have to remember the bad guy or he will sneak up on us.
God pretty much yanked me out of my comfort zone and threw me to the other side of the world. i don't like public speaking, yet i was sharing the gospel in front of hundreds - even thousands - of people at a time. it stretched me so much and i overcame so much in the process. and the best part about it is it really has nothing to do with me and everything to do with God. God made it all happen, God saved all those people. The two weeks we were there about 300,000 people accepted Christ. I don't know how many we preached to. i can't remember. imagine 300,000 people. 300,000 more people in heaven someday. shouting praises in the throne room. i can't even imagine what it will be like because my little mind is not even capable of comprehending that blissful explosion of joy.
I have a lot i could write in here, but i'll just write this little ditty cause i think it pretty much sums up the trip pretty well. ok..
well, we were flying into the city early in the morning about 5:30ish and i was listening to my ipod, praying, just trying to find some peace because i was scared out of my mind. i was listening to some of my hippie praise music (haha, there's no other way to describe it) and they were saying "I will trust you like the dawn" and other stuff about God being as faithful as the dawn. about 5 minutes later, out of the airplane window, i could see the sun rising in the clouds. and joy swept over me and my heart was smiling. i thought "how can i not fulling give myself to God who has created all things and is in all things? i am not my own. what do i have that hasn't been given to me?" i realized how little i am and what a big God He is... and it all seemed so silly.
that was a pretty great moment, but somehow, i lost it when we landed and fear set in again. the whole rest of the day was a mix of being scared about preaching and little moments of peace and reassurance... eventually the following day i preached for the first time, it was amazing, everyone got saved. God showed me that i could do it. and even if it isn't perfect, he's the one that's responsible and he's the one that works wonders - not me. So the rest of the trip went well and i became more comfortable and was able to have fun and enjoy myself while i was up there telling the best news ever. on the weekend i wanted to go out and talk to people and i didn't want to stop.
so on the last day, we were driving for a long time to get to our first school. i was with jay and pastor eddie. we were driving up this mountain and it was absolutely breathetaking. the sun was rising like it was on the first day in the plane. the sun was shining right in my face through all the trees. God was telling me that he is faithful like the dawn. even when i messed up on the trip, it didn't matter. my faithfulness doesn't effect his faithfulness. it was wonderful and i won't ever forget it. the rest of the day was great and pastor eddie cracked us up all day. Then we got to the last school and it was on top of a mountain, literally. there was nothing higher. and it was a small school - about 40 kids. i preached, the kids got saved, and the teacher. it was faaaaaaaaabulous. and it's a metaphor for my experience. i climbed a big mountain with God's help.
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| well i just got back from the Philippines on sunday night. i can't even really describe how awesome it was. i'm a totally different person. i didn't want to leave. what i was doing there seems so much more important compared to all the trivial things that fill my life here. it was an emotional rollercoaster.
i got my wisdom teeth out yesterday morn. and it was a piece of cake. my dad took forever to recover when he got his out and my family was telling me that i would be miserable and in pain. but i secretly thought, nahh i'll be fine. i have good mental strength. and i was right. i didn't even have to take a vicodin. i took a half of one. i am a little puffy this morning and i don't like these chubby cheeks. and.. at the oral surgeon's is this boy that works there who was in my summer school class. and it was a little embarrassing because he was sitting there during the procedure and was watching my mouth get cut open. and then when i left my mom was helping me walk out and i was all delirous from the anesthesia wearing off. he was trying to help me, but i was like "no i can do it, no no" haahaa.
and this morning and yesterday morning i woke up at 5 am, so the jet lag is still effecting me, although i slept like a rock on all the 5 plane rides home. so i am getting tired again and i'm going to go back to bed.
but, later i will write a detailed account of my trip with pictures included and maybe i'll throw in a few spiritual insights... and i know you have awaited those. so just be patient. it will come soon.
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