God is so good. Not only does He show His goodness during the bad, but He shows up IN the bad. He’s in control. I’m so glad He isn’t sitting back like i am and worrying and wondering. What a comfort. He doesn’t waste pain. i wish i felt like this all the time. Yesterday was good. Not my definition of good, but i know He’s working, and i’m grateful He gave me a little vision of it.

this next week, i’m back at KGHS. For the very last time. (well, for the year). I can’t even begin to tell you how thrilled i am about that fact. it’s been the most boring part of the past three years of my life and i’m ready to move on. i know i was supposed to be there for certain reasons, people, and lessons i’ve learned. but the more i sit and do nothing all day, the more i yearn for life outside of the walls. i didn’t/haven’t had a bad high school experience, i’m just grateful for all the amazing people God’s put in my life outside of school. Real friends as one might call them. ha.

picturespicturespictures.

So, i’m getting my senior pictures done today…and i think after i woke up with morning ( or rather, stumbled out of bad half conscious…long goood good night) i realized how weird this is for me. People don’t take pictures of me. Even before i got my SLR, i was always the one taking pictures OF people. I haven’t had professional in studio pictures done since i was in fifth grade. FIFTH grade. Kind of a long time ago? And don’t get me wrong, i love Sarah D. and i trust her whole heartedly, it’s just strange for me. As i told the oh so amazing and hardcore Holly Richters, i was standing in my bathroom, brushing my teeth and then i looked in the mirror. And i stared blankly for a minute or so ( yeah, good thing there wasn’t a hidden camera, I’m sure i looked completely ridiculous). I turned my head from side to side, looked up close and then stood back and thought “Do i have a good side?? Do i need to know this stuff??” Yeah, i know. WeIrDo.

SO, wish me luck! i think i’ve found my good side…haa. Actually, pray for me please. i’m sure i’ll need it.

i went. i saw. i did hair. the end.

Regardless of the happenings in my life now, i know for certain how blessed i am to have the job i have.

I am an apprentice cosmetologist at my family’s business, “Carter’s Hairstyling” as the third-generation of hairdressers in the family. When my dad suggested me start the program, since I was doing my friends hair for free, I had no idea what was in store for me. I was very disappointed at the beginning of the summer that i wouldn’t be traveling the world and that i would be home working for the man ( literally). It’s been good and it’s been bad at times, but overall, it’s been quite the adventure.

My day starts very early. Whether it be by sound of Leeland singing from my phone thanks to early morning text messages or my dad yelling up the stairs, I find that I am pulling myself out of bed at seven something most days ( I gave up on a sleep a long time ago) to shower and find something to wear. My dad has made my lunch for school all my life and it hasn’t stopped for summer. He makes the best vegetarian wraps. By eight at the latest, we get in the truck and make the thirty minute trek to the shop in downtown Fredericksburg. I really like this long drive. Our family’s going through a lot right now, and sometimes we both need to vent. And other times we just sit and listen to Yes.

I work every Tuesday regardless if I have customers or not because I have to get 3000 hours in order to complete my apprenticeship. Most apprentices spend their first 1000 hours sweeping up hair and answering phone, but that isn’t what has been my experience. Given that generally the apprentice’s boss isn’t his or her dad, but regardless, I have finished many of the completions necessary in the 3000 hours, going well over sixty in haircut completions of the fifty necessary.

Sometimes Tuesdays are boring, especially if I have one or no customers. I bring my computer, camera ( which you might notice from this post), books, journal; I make it interesting. When I’m not doing hair, I’m folding/drying/hanging towels, answering the phone, sweeping up hair and all those other necessary things. If there’s nothing to do, sometimes I’ll sit and listen to my dad’s customers. Every one has a story and each of them compliments my photography when they see the picture of Laura ( what can I say, I like ego boosts? just kidding).

You can’t be a hairstylist and not be a people person. I’ve had to learn that even when I’m having a day when I’d be much happier not talking to anyone, you can do excellent work and come across as a jerk. I’ve learned a lot about loving people through God’s eyes and not my opinions doing this job.

Speaking of doing my job, I actually do that on occasion at the shop : ) I’ve had twenty something clients so far, all being repeats give or take one or two. God had blessed me with amazing customers, many of them good friends. He’s given me a lot of opportunity in a field that is incredibly difficult to break into, and I’m still in high school.I don’t know if hair is my future. Honestly, i’m pretty certain it won’t be my full-time career. But who am i to say i know what will happen with my life? It is not my own. In the mean time, i’m going to enjoy the opportunity He’s given me.

The first slideshow is of a few of the people who have been through my chair when i had my camera with me. The second slideshow is some of what i’ve done when there weren’t people coming through my chair )

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

And hope does not disappoint us,

because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

Romans 5:1-5

though it seems so this hope is not in vain

oh and i’m so small, i can barely be seen…

I wrote a four word letter…

with post-script in crooked lines,
“Though I’d lived I’d never been alive.”

And you know who I am… you held my hem as I traveled blind,
Listening to the whispering in my ear, soft but getting stronger,

Telling me the only purpose of my being here is to stay a bit longer.

Stealing a bicycle chain as the handlebars crashed to the ground,
And the back wheel detached from the frame, it kept rolling, yeah,
But aimlessly drifting around.

Oh, doubters, let’s go down… let’s go down, won’t you come on down?
Oh, doubters, let’s go down… down to the river to pray.
“Oh, but I’m so small I can barely be seen… how can this great love be inside of me?“
Look at your eyes…. they’re small in size, but they see enormous things.

Wearing black canvas slippers in our frog-on-a-lily-pad pose,
We sewed buttons and zippers to Chinese pink silk and olive night clothes.

If you could someday stop by somehow we’ll show you the pictures and fix you some tea…
See, my dad’s getting a bit older now, and just unimaginably lonely!

Oh, pretenders, let’s go down… let’s go down, won’t you come on down?
Oh, pretenders, let’s go down… down to the river to pray.

“Oh, but I’m so afraid” or “I’m set in my ways”
But He’ll make the rabbits and rocks sing His praise.
“Oh, but I’m too tired, I won’t last long.”
No, He’ll use the weak to overcome the strong!
Oh, Amanda, let’s go down… let’s go down, won’t you come on down?
Mama, Nana, let’s go down… down in the dirt by the river to pray.

(A wick to fit the wax… wood to fit the wire)

You strike the match… why not be utterly changed to fire?
To sacrifice the shadow and the mist of a brief life you never much liked?
So if you’d care to come along, we’re gonna curb all our never-ending, clever complaining,
As who’s ever heard of a singer criticized by his song?

Though we hunger,

though all that we eat brings us little relief,
We don’t know quite what else to do;
We have all our beliefs, but we don’t want our beliefs…
God of Peace, we want You.

my soul is doing battle with unbelief. and when i am so inward looking; when old pain is renewed in such a short period of time–i cannot seem to love people how He wants me to, i cannot seem to pray with words of anything. i cannot seem to speak His truth without the lies of my flesh creeping out, disguised. all my flesh does is makes excuses. makes me think that im an exception to the Beauty He offers. that has crippled me in a certain sense. i know they are lies. i am also conscious i believe them. weird place to be.

i will not go through this life and finish with “i’ve wasted it, i’ve wasted it!”

“To put it another way, when you put your trust in Christ, your bondage to this world and its overpowering lure is broken. You are a corpse to the world and the world is a corpse to you. Or to put it positively, according to verse 15, you are “a new creation.” The old “you” is dead. The new “you” is alive. And the new you is the you of faith. And what faith does is boast not in the world, but in Christ crucified.”

“…The world is no longer our treasure. It is not the source of our life or our satisfaction or our joy. Christ is.”

“…thus a cross-centered, cross saturated life is a God-glorifying life. All others are wasted.”

“For there is no greater joy than joy in the greatness of God. And if we must suffer to see this and savor it most deeply, than suffering is a mercy. And Christ’s call to take up our cross and join him on the Calvary road is love.

So, i purchased this book (Don’t Waste Your Life) a few weeks ago when i was buying a copy for friend of mine. I had read it a few years ago on the PDF file of the book John Piper’s website offers and i decided i’d like to read it again, mainly for the purposes of re-visiting it to remind myself what made this book so good, since i was buying it for someone else and all. What a difference the time gap has made. Because so much has drastically changed and been added into my life, my perspective on this book is vastly different. Not that it was bad before though. It’s, for one, taking me much much longer to read. it seems to take longer to process. I’m enjoying it, savoring it, being convicted by it, and being enouraged by it.

Two things from today’s excursions into the book:

The first three quotes are all in the same thought. and almost all on the same page, actually.

I’ve recently discovered that i don’t eat meat so well anymore. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to be honest, but eating vegan and vegetarian makes me feel very good, very healthy and very energetic. Eating most meats just makes me feel tired and unhealthy. Sort of like this, i have discovered that a cross-saturated life is not only the only way i should live, but the only way i can possibly live truly alive. Believe me, i have tried the alternatives. Most of them actually. They feel like they are good, especially when they involve people liking good stuff about you, nice guys paying special attention to you, success in work and play and such, but they are so empty when they are focused on ourselves (which generally, these things are very self-oriented).

The world will let you down. People leave. Guys will too. Success is so fleeting. Can i take pleasure in these worldly things alone and still find joy when they are gone? No. My focus must be on Christ and Him crucified, else all things to be enjoyed in the world are meaningless, else my life is wasted chasing after them.

It is a battle for me. I am incredibly selfish. It is so easy for me to forget about where my focus must be to live when something else pops up to alluring and flattering me. But when i pursue it, it leaves me empty. Endless-pit-of-darkness kind of empty.  Hallelujah for the Great Redeemer, who looks on me as i run away from Him with eyes of pity and a heart of everlasting, unfathomable love and gently brings me back to himself, when if i were Him, i’d let me keep running and hope to never see that pesky girl again (well, more proof why God’s God and Kathryne’s not). I want to cling to Christ as he is the “source of my life, my satisfaction and my joy.“

I was going to stop at Chapter 4, but when i flipped the page and read the title, i couldn’t.

“Magnifying Christ Through Pain and Death.”

I’ve had my share of pain over the past three years. Mind you, nowhere near as much as 3/4 the people in the world, but i know that i have not lived a life typical to most covenant families in the US. My family has been struggling a lot lately with shame and bitterness, particularly towards our church in relation to my brother and their treatment of oaths he and they took upon his membership. Things were said/yelled, letters were sent, phone calls were ignored, sermons were walked out on, all resulting in Sundays being the most broken and the worst family day of the week by far, which really makes my heart sad. Thus, my interest in the 4th chapter. I found the last quote i put on here near the beginning.

I need to be reminded daily that there is “no greater joy than joy in the greatness of God. And if we must suffer to see this and savor it most deeply, than suffering is a mercy.“

He saved me from a wasted life of half-hearted passion for Christ when Stephen changed so drastically. I am a different person because of it. Not a good one, but one very keenly aware of my desperate desperate need for a Savior. I went through pain for the loss of him, horrible shame, hurt, bitterness and guilt, but that was mercy. I sure didn’t see it at the time, but it became quite obvious as i have looked back. And then He shared in my pain during those long, sleepless, and confused nights right after i found out of the pregnancy. He shared in the pain of my anger. He uprooted the bitterness so firmly set as a brick wall before me. He comforted me when i thought i had lost my brother for good. He forgave me for the horrible things i thought and said ( that, possibly being the greatest feat of all of these). And He continues to prove Himself faithful, even when i doubt him. I don’t want to doubt him anymore. It’s such a scary place to be. I am still lost though. This hasn’t been and it won’t be a swish-and-done deal. But i have faith. Faith that one day, maybe not in 5 or 10 years, my Sundays will be renewed and God will prove Himself faithful yet again.

In the mean time,

Cantaré a Jehová,
Porque me ha hecho bien
–Salmos13

on the joy of a birthday…

Lately, my Saturdays have started at 4:45 in the morning. Usually, (and especially) because it’s Friday night, i will have stayed up to some unGodly hour the night before. This particular case would be a result of shooting in downtown with Bethany and going to go see a 925 showing of Mama Mia. But nevertheless, i find i am pulling myself out of bed, getting ready quickly, drinking some Naked (ha.) to stay alive, nourished and full of fruit ( best way to be.) and running out the door to drive (either with Quanns or without) to the South Point Chick-Fillet to meet some of my good friends at 630. From there, we carpool down to Richmond to the Woman’s Health Clinic just off of Boulevard. Each Saturday morning, the clinic is open for solely abortion procedures. We go and read Scripture and pray for a few hours.

i have found that in the past two or so years, i have gone through times where i treated this time in the same mentality as one would say “doing church.” It became a system. I felt very disheartened by the angry anti-abortion activist’s yelling and screaming, the cold stares from escorts, people going in and passing runners and though i knew i needed to be there, it didn’t feel like i was doing anything but ‘doing my time.’ For a worthy cause, obviously.

i praise God that He keeps showing His face and His hand to my doubting heart when He is under no obligation to do such a thing. He brought new people who have been convicted to stand for truth. He broke down incredible barriers between us and the escorts. He’s helped us build relationships. Not only with each other as we are bound in a tight-knit group of friends with the same mindset and desire to see Jesus glorified, but with the people we would have considered our enemies on first approach. The people on the other side of the battle lines. literally. He’s emboldened us. He has shut the mouth of the Devil from spewing lies into the ears of the lost. He has crushed my heart and made it so much bigger. Not with anything i have thought and done but wholly with Himself.

I sat down with my journal and bible by a tree this morning, after we read Colosians and 1st Thessalonians together, and watched. I saw women being loved, even when they chose to keep walking. I watched Tim as he continues to build his relationship with Peggy, the clinic escort. I watched Fred, an angry, yelling anti-abortion guy who has been confronted in love more in the past two weeks than in a very long time stand on the street corner and sing hymns with little passion, NOT loudly quoting the bible in a hateful way, and NOT screaming at women. God was being glorified there. Yes, even at a location where thousands of precious babies are killed. He can and will make all things good. Not in my time, not in my ways, but in His perfect way. And we can wait on Him and trust in Him, cause He has been good to us. (PS 13).

So, two means of support i ask from you: prayer and participation. I ask anyone who reads this that if you feel you want to see what goes on there beyond what you hear on the news or in politics, please come join us. We are there to Love God and Love people. We pray for an end to the holocaust, but we know we alone cannot do it. So, while we wait on God, we are called to be is servants and to show His love to the lost and hurt like He showed us His love when we were lost and hurt. If you feel called, please come. And if you simply cannot join us in Richmond on Saturday mornings, i would ask that you would pray for us in a few specific ways:

–that in whatever we do, Christ is glorified and nothing of ourselves is added

–that we would know when to speak and when to be silent. to pray without ceasing.

–for our relationships with the clinic escorts, Peggy and Andrew. We know the most about Peggy and she does not know if abortion is right or wrong, she just knows that the hate exuded from some of the people in the pro-life movement is wrong. That she would see the One who is Love through us and find Him.

–for Fred, a very angry man at the clinic who is there fairly religiously. that he would not yell and that he would not scream and if he does, we would have the discernment of what action to take. That his heart would be broken for these women and the doctors and nurses. Particularly, that we would not look at him and compare him to ourselves, seeing as we are equally in need of a Savior from our sins.

–for the people who run by who see what we are doing( because in Richmond on Saturday mornings, there are quite a few).

–for perseverance and hope.

and that’s the story of today…goodnight.

Here, this is my card. Please advertise my life to your friends. Thanks!

i’m redecorating my room and i quite like it.

i spent most of yesterday in town and that always makes me a happier person. Not that King George is all that bad but…well, you just have to live here to understand i think. I got up early and did my hair, or rather tamed the afro from the perm-gone-wrong. Then i drove to the shop and met Jessica there for her hair appointment. I like working at the shop a whole lot, but i like it a whole lot MORE when I’m by myself, mostly because i can use whichever chair i want AND i can change the horribly repetitive (well, to me, because i hear it every day) music. So, i cut Jessica’s hair to Derek Webb, Shane&Shane, Maná, and Juanes. I love it when people come into the shop and want something bold done. I don’t mind doing the “letsjusttakeaninchoff” hair cuts, but when the customer is willing to take a risk and trusts you enough to do it to them, it’s so much fun.

Jessica's gorgeous hair before she's off to England!.

i’ve discovered i’m a very artsy person…who can’t draw or paint. So i’m left with things like cosmetology, guitar, interior design and photography to channel the artisan inside of me. After that, i went to Walmart and bought some stuff i needed for the re-decoration of my room. A diner wall clock, a dry erase board, two picture frames, some thumb tacks, black paint, oh what fun : ). Then i headed over to Lifeway to buy Seth’s birthday gift–John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life. As i was looking for it, i met Mr. Richards, who oddly enough, was buying me a book to give me when school started. “Jesus For President” by Shaine Claiborne. Just started it, all i can say as of now is “what a montage…”Either way, it was very good to see him. i might be taking pictures for the drama club. I sure hope so, might as well put my camera to use, eh? Also, we’re doing the Grapes of Wrath this year in drama club. THAT’S exciting. After chatting for a while, i went to Guitar Center and bought a guitar stand for my baby. Then back to the shop to do Seth’s hair. I love highlights. I love LOTS of highlights. That’s why i’m thankful for semi-religious customers like Seth who like them as much as i do

check those babies out.

So, i spent about three hours on Seth’s hair, re-highlighting the re-growth and cutting it a lot shorter for marching band season. We talked about “real” friends and i think there’s more truth into that funny conversation then i had once thought. We listened to…the name has escaped me, but it was pretty much a Spanish rap musical. And Seth brought it. And likes it. AND danced to it. And asked me what two Spanish words meant. If that’s not proof of how much he’s changed this summer, then you’re just asking too much. And the final product…

ta-da.

And that’s the story of yesterday.

…sure.

i wish i could write this in some deep, metaphoric way,

I was looking back today, on what life in my family was like a year ago on a Sunday compared to today, it breaks my heart.

All i know is feeling like i’m the only person in a household who is not completely overcome with despair, bitterness and indifference, while feeling in grave need of spiritual guidance in the midst of personal failure is one of the worst feelings i’ve felt in a long time. it’s very real and i don’t like it.

anyway. now i’m going to sleep.