Piece of my Heart.

One of my favorite things about life is growth.
Growth is never ending....(except when we die of course) as humans we're constantly learning, gaining wisdom, and attempting to figure out our reason for existence. Why the hell God put us on this earth. Sure I go to school with hundreds of people who apparently came out of the womb knowing that they wanted to do mission work, or become a pastor, or a teacher.... but not me. Oh boy, not me. I've never been the kid who KNEW 100% what I was doing, but I learned to fake it real well.

I remember my kindergarten graduation vividly, when we got on the stage the teacher asked every one of us what we wanted to be when we grow up and I remember thinking in my little brain, holy shit...I have no clue, I think I'll make something up to look cool. So, in front of all of my family and fellow 5 year olds, I stood up straight and said, "I want to be a police officer."
Oh little Lauren, always trying to act tough.

I was asked the same thing when I went into junior high, and I think I said.... "I want to be a veteranarian, I love animals and I want to help them." And then I realized, too much studying.... I don't DO studying. I remember graduating high school and the same question came up in convo quite often actually... and while everyone knew what they were going to do in college, I was the girl that had the "undecided" major. So then people would ask...."well then what brought you all the way to Mary Hardin Baylor?" Honestly, I had no clue. I would tell people, "Well I like the trees there, and the squirrels are cute, and the people are nice, and I have family close by, so that's why." At one point I thought I knew why I was here, and then I decided to take over the reins and lead my own life. But really and truly, God is the only one who can plan my/our future. Not ME. He knows why he put me on this earth, and he has slowly been revealing these reasons to me. I just needed to let him take over and to trust him in order for me to see it all so clear.

In case you don't know me well enough, here's a fact about me: I have this problem with being extremely impatient. I hate waiting on people to get their shit together (which is why I made a terrible waitress) I hate waiting on other drivers on the road (which is why I have terrible road rage) and I hate when people just beat around the bush when talking about things.....just get to the dang point already! Unfortunately I have learned...the hard way of course.... that impatience doesn't really bide well with God. But boy did I try SO hard to ooze every ounce of "knowing" out of God throughout the last 4 years. I couldn't stand sitting around NOT knowing what was in store for my life. Not knowing who I should date, when I was gunna get married and have babies, not knowing what my major was going to be, and most recently: not knowing what my career is going to take me and where the Army is going to take my husband and I next... I just want to KNOW all of these things... NOW.

Story time: This all kinda reminds me of how my husband will tell me that he has a surprise for me, and it always pisses me off when he does that and he knows it! Why can't you just have a surprise and keep it a surprise?? Cause if you tell me there's a surprise then all I can think about is how I DON'T KNOW what it is, and I make it my mission in life to figure out what in the world it is! And it drives me NUTS. And eventually I just ruin it for myself, cause I get angry...and then I usually will argue with Brandon about how "secrets don't make friends." Personally I think he gets the biggest kick out of it. Take what you will from that analogy.


But anyways, so here I am. A senior in college. I'm graduating in 7 months with my Bachelors degree in Fine Arts. So much for law enforcement and vet school, eh? Hahah.
It was quite the journey getting to this point, I'll tell you that much. Lot's of doubting myself, doubting my decision to become an art major, and lot's of doubting God really. I came to college not knowing who I was gunna be and it took years and this roller-coaster of life changing events for me to actually be able to answer the question "Why did you come all the way to UMHB?"

Well I came here initially because I trusted God had it all under control...Which led me to meet my husband, who led me to become an artist, which led me to search my inner being and my heart.... which led me to figure out what I want out of this life...and what led me to where and who I am today.

They always say that hindsight is 20/20...and it's so true. Everything always seems SO CLEAR after the fact.Why is that? Well....we're human. That's why. When we grow we learn. And when learn how to do something, or if you're like me- how NOT to do something, then typically we don't go back to how we used to do things. Am I right?

Example: I used to try and paint on a HUGE canvas without drafting my initial drawing first, and my paintings always sucked and took TWICE as long to finish. So now I draft first, paint later.... and the more time I put into the drafting the less time I have to waste trying to figure out with the paintbrush how to get the angle of a nose or find the color to reflect light off of a face.

Just like, the less time we spend trusting God, the more time is wasted worrying, panicking, doubting, crying, and stressing. I've tried hard recently to stop worrying, and to just go with the flow..... and I have actually been quite pleased with the outcome. I am more productive, successful, level headed and organized. I don't need to know it all. Because what's the fun in that? I'm having fun right now, and that's all that matters.

If there's anything you take with you from this blog post it should be this:
No relationship can prosper without trust.
Trust is the foundation of any relationship.

I trust God, I trust my Husband, I trust myself.
and I trust that between all three of us, this life can only get better.

-LC