The difference between a pencil and a pen.

"The more things change, the more things stay the same." I'm not quite sure who the first person to say this was. Maybe Shakespeare. Or probably Bob Dylan. The sad thing though, is that this is a completely false statement. If my life experience has taught me anything, it is this.... the more things change, the more they stay changed.

When thinking about this statement, I always look back to Thanksgiving of this past year. My family has always been unconvientanal at best, as we were brothers and sisters by choice, connected by something different, and quite possibly deeper than blood. While we all had our own mothers and fathers, and some, biological siblings, we had all realized early in our teen years, that family is not defined by DNA. Our deep commitment to each other, unconditional love, and fierce protection of each other made us family - a kind of fiercely loyal family that I had rarely seen, or heard about. For five beautiful years we were a unit, a force to be reckoned with. If someone pushed one of us, we all pushed back as one, showing beautiful amounts of grace and solid friendship to each other. This past Thanksgiving, my five brothers by choice, and three sisters of no biological relation, gathered together, to give thanks and spend quality time with each other, after being scattered across the nation for college.

My sisters and I had really out done ourselves, preparing enough food to feed a small nation, and decorating the highly polished, mahogany table with glittering crystal and gold. We all gathered around the food, enjoying the boisterous laughter and tangible love that hung heavily in the air. It was the most relaxing thing in the world to sit with a group of people who knew everything about you - your flaws, faults, shortcomings, and epic mistakes - but still loved you completely and deeply. The months of school, and being apart, had taken a toll on all of us, and we all reveled in the feeling of being able to breathe easily again.

Halfway through dessert, my brother Dindak stood, lifting his glass to make a toast.

"Well guys... Laura told me that I'm supposed to make a toast. An epic one, at that, or she disowns me." Laughter rippled around the table and he continued. "But in all seriousness, I want to tell y'all about my first year at church camp. I went summer before freshman year, and God really shook my life up. For one of the first times, I knew what it meant to be passionately in love with Christ. He really put it on my heart, that if I was going to live the life He intended for me, I had to get rid of all the friends I currently had. They were all really bad influences, but it was still hard to cut them off. God promised me though, that if I did it, He would restore the kind of friendships to my life, that I never even thought possible. Tonight, I'm looking at the fulfillment of that promise. For you guys, have been the kind of friends to me, that I never thought existed. You're my brothers and sisters... and I am more thankful for you, than I am for anything else. So... a toast, to you guys... for being the kind of people who are an answer to prayer." I choked back a tear, and reached over to squeeze the arm of my brother next to me. The night continued, beautiful and simple, all of us thinking we had millions of "family" get togethers in our future to look forward to.

It's been eight months since that night of Thanksgiving, and more has changed than I thought possible. I no longer have my brothers and sisters, as we have all scattered, and lost each other in some form or fashion. There was no giant falling out, or group fight.... there was just complacency. We thought our relationships as a group to be so strong, and so infallible, that we forgot to continue to grow and cultivate. We drifted apart, and by the time we noticed, it was far too late to repair the damage we had allowed to happen.

At times, when I think of what we shared, and what no longer exists, it hurts. But it's a good kind of pain, as I remember the people who I will always think of as my first family, the ones who taught me a new definition of love and loyalty. For even though the people who were for so long the most important in my world are gone, the change they left in my life is written in permenant ink, and can't be erased.

It's like we were a dandelion. If we had stayed together, as a unit, and a group, we would have died. But in that scatter, the seeds were blown out, free to land wherever needed. That freedom gives us a chance to grow, to change, and to cultivate the same kind of loyalty and unconditional love that we shared with one another, for and in other people.

Restoration.

Often in my life, I have looked to the Biblical character Job as a source of comfort and hope. Many people read Job and preach sermons about staying faithful to God in trial, or how we should never be like Jobs friends, who accuse him of doing something wrong to deserve such punishment.

When I look to Job though, the only thing I have ever been able to see is hope. For Job loses everything that has ever been important. In the loss of his health, he lost his own sense of comfort. In the loss of his wealth, he lost his prominent status in society. In the loss of his sons and daughters, he lost his heart - for when you love someone that deeply, and lose them so suddenly, you have no idea how to handle such grief. And he lost his respect for his friends, and his wife. He truly had nothing left. What else can be broken in his life? Everything he cares about is in shattered fragmented pieces.

This, gives me hope. It gives me hope because God didn't abandon Job, and He never forgot about him. In fact, God restores everything that Job has lost SEVEN TIMES over. Does this mean that Job ever forgets the echos and ghosts of the things and people he once loved? No. The things God has restored to his life can never fully take the place of his memories of that which he lost, or the pain he felt during that time. But just because it won't be the same, doesn't mean it can't be better.

Restoration comes in many forms and fashions, and it doesn't always look like we think it should. It is never on our time, but it's always on time.

Much has been restored to me in the past year. After everything I loved, planned on, and dreamed of came crashing to my feet, I struggled to move forward with my life. I felt like everyone was moving around me, going 90 mph, and I was stuck. I couldn't move forward, yet I couldn't stop looking back. When I finally started walking forward, at first dawdling, then moving to a jog, finally reaching a sprint, as if I couldn't get away from the loss fast enough. In that act of trust, and surrender that it took to start moving, God has restored more to me than I ever imagined. He has restored to me a family - even if it was in a different form than I ever thought possible. And in that restoration of a family, He taught me a new definition of family. He taught me that the people who believe in you, who love you unconditionally, and push you to be your absolute best, are family, in the truest sense of the world. He restored to me love, awakening a heart that was determined to remain cold and unfeeling, protected from hurt. He has restored to me ambition and dreams for the future, when I once thought it was forever lost. He planted in me the dream and consuming passion for my own ministry, and the knowledge of how to run it.

And He restored to me hope, the most important thing of all. Hope that no matter what I go through in life, no matter what storm I live through, I'll continue to have within me an invincible sunshine. Storms are a chance to grow, to thrive, and better yourself. Rain clears the head.

You might be able to move mountains, but no one said anything about cliffs.

One of my favorite, and scariest things I have ever done in my life is cliff jumping. On a high school class camping trip to Arkansas, we canoed down the Buffalo River. We reached a spot that had three cliffs, affectionately nicknamed "baby bear", "mama bear", and "papa bear" by those who had been there before. It was enthusiastically agreed upon that we would jump from the cliffs, into the river below. It was supposedly safe, even though none of our teenage selves knew how high the water was, or if this was allowable.

The climb up was difficult, and most girls opted to stay at "baby bear", the shortest of the three cliffs, being only thirty feet high. I chose to push onward with the guys, adventure and the thought of adrenaline compelling me. "Papa bear" was roughly seventy feet high - a fact that I had convienently ignored until reaching the top, and clinging to a tree branch that was growing out of the cliff. I instantly decided that I could never jump from such a height. It wasn't just the height that I was scared of, it was the fact that one would have to back up, and get a running start to clear the four feet of shrubbery that was growing out of the side of the cliff to get a safe shot at hitting the water right. I knew that I had to climb back down, and jump from a safer, less intimidating height.

Upon examining the trail we had taken up, it was discovered that it would not only be impossible, but dangerous to try to go backwards down it. I was stuck, with my only options to fabricate enough courage to jump, or continue sitting there, with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Now, four years ago, I feel faced with that impossible decision again. I have unknowling climbed to a cliff far higher than anything I would want to face, and there's only one way down. The longer I sit, waiting without actually jumping, thinking that maybe the rock face will shrink or a magical helicopter will come save me from my own stupidity, the worse I feel. The fear twists and turns in my stomach, making it impossible to think about anything except the dreaded jump, and the unknown that comes with such a leap of faith.

What if the water isn't really as deep as it looks? What if there are rocks hidden under the surface? What if I don't even manage to clear the shrubbery, and enter the water wrong?

I jump to all the worst case scenarios, thinking each one to be a probability, not just a possibility. But none of this thinking really matters, nor does what I'm going to lose on the way down. The truth is, that I have to leap - and let whatever happen, happen.

You might be able to move mountains, but no one ever said anything about cliffs...

Card house dreamer.

My world is falling apart.
I was a fool, I never saw it coming.
Oh no, no.My life is like a card house.
A delicate construction
With no regard for the wind.

- The shaky construction is never considered or thought twice about. Instead, blinded by the shiny promises

of a future covered with a high gloss sheen, we move our hearts into the card house, letting it take residence there. Outside elements aren't considered as it begins to fill to the brim with expectations, hopes, and plans that would take a life time to be lived. Only when one of the way quivers, and a card unexpectedly floats away, letting in patches of light and forgotten outside world do we pause, wondering if it truly is indestructable.

Everybody's changing.
Oh everybody's changing.
And I don't know how much more I can take.

I thought I had everything under control.
I couldn't have been more wrong.

I thought I held my world in my hands.
Until it broke and I awoke from this foolish dream.

- Humans are not incapable of change, we just avoid it like like a disease, knowing how bad the shaping and twisting of the clay, followed by the fire of the kiln will hurt worse than we think possible to endure. And what if the new, changed version of us, is not acceptable? What if it was all for nothing? No. This is not an option. For we, the clay, surely know better. For we are far better off as a half finished tea pot, with no spout, that MIGHT make a halfway decent bowl, than becoming the unknown. We strive for control, all the while knowing the tighter we hold, the more we will lose, and the more damage we will cause.

I put so much of myself in everything else.
Yeah in everything else.
It was a dream come seemingly true.
Torn at the seams revealing a nightmare.

I thought I had everything under control.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
I thought I held my world in my hands.
Until it broke my heart.
Everything I loved had changed.

- T.H. White once said, "Perhaps we give the best of our hearts uncritically, to those who hardly think of us in return." How easily as a society have we begun to willingly break our own hearts? I confess that I myself have a "go down with the sinking ship" attitude towards people and things I am truly committed to. But what kind of discretion and discernment do we use before making such kind of commitment? Are we moved by the voice of God in our relationships? You will only go as far in life as those you surround yourself with who believe in your dreams. It's as simple as that. Jesus set an incredible model for friendship - He had the masses, who followed Him, listening and talking. He had the 12 close friends, with whom He could talk life, live daily with, and love deeply. Then He had the 3 - His inner circle of sorts, His best friends with whom He could bare His heart with, and who believed in Him with a deep conviction.

Coffee and cigarettes can't save me.
No, it's a hope where there's no chance of a hope in the world.
And I'm hoping for it.

I thought I held my world in my hands.

Until it broke my heart.
Everything I loved was flawed.

-We, as Christians, must begin to long for sustenance, not substances. We must be filled with, satisfied with, and saturated on the Word of God, and fellowship with Him when we feel like our own shabbily constructed card house dreams are falling apart. We must lose our substance abuse pro

blems - which can take any shape or form. The substance we lean on, and go to for comfort instead of the Lord must become second to the sustenance which can repair us, and build a dream that is not our own, but better than anything we can come up with.