laughter, bees, and googly eyes.

Little kids make me laugh so hard sometimes.

And every once in awhile, we all need a good belly laugh.

You know the kind...the kind that starts rumbling down deep in your gut, moving upwards towards your heart, and finally hitting your lungs before bursting forth in a fit of pure shaking joy? (sometimes accompanied by tears and the fear of you hacking up a lung...)

Yeah, that kind.

This photo made me laugh so hard. It's Nathaniel, my mom's friend Julie's son.

Enjoy.

"'That buzzing noise means something. If there's a buzzing noise, somebody's making a buzzing noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing noise that I know of is because you're a bee...and the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey...and the only reason for making honey that I know of is so as I can eat it.' And so he began to climb the tree." -Winnie the Pooh

sunny days make me happy.

Sunny days make me happy.

Driving home on the freeway, windows down and music blasting Grits' "Tennesee Boys"...

"65 south ridin' dirty window down open mouth spirit stirred off the sermon I just heard that's my word
dipped and doused
awakened quickly mold me shape me but first strip, hold me take me to extremes in my reside
though it seems I'm so beside
myself in this state I'm place in open the box my fate encased in break the seal and let me out
in Tennessee thats what I'm talkin' bout..."

Did I mention that sunny days make me happy?

Once I got home, I walked past a group of little Hispanic kids playing tag in the courtyard of my apartment building, and it was the cutest thing ever. Brought back so many good childhood memories. The tree was obviously base, and in between broken Spanish phrases I heard, "No babysitting! No babysitting!" I laughed as I walked upstairs, and now I'm wondering since when did "puppy-guarding" become "babysitting" ?

Sometimes I miss being 10 years old.

Now where's my Frisbee? I gotta go play!

things i miss about home

- the sound of my mom’s wind chimes after a storm
- the sound of my dad shaking the newspaper out to read it every evening
- tickle fights with my brother
- jumping on my sister’s bed at 10 in the morning when she refused to wake up
- the scent of my mom’s lilacs in the spring
- the feeling of running barefoot in the backyard grass
- sneaking out my bedroom window and sitting on the roof to watch summer sunsets
- being able to get anywhere you needed to go in town within 10 or 15 minutes
- finding notes stuffed in my car door from Rachael after getting out of a super boring class at Kish
- Ollie’s. Enough said.
- this one particular couple who came to pickup the leftover bread every other Friday night at Panera…I used to give them free coffee and make their daughter my special hot chocolate that wasn’t on the menu…and they would always make me smile.
- hangouts at the girl’s apartment on Lincoln Hwy…best times ever
- getting my little brother in the car and driving through all the huge lake-puddles that formed in our neighborhood after a storm just right and laughing as it splashed against the windows
- cornfields. never thought I’d say it. (I do NOT miss being stuck driving behind tractors though…agh!)
- being able to navigate campus and tell people where things are…OSU is so much bigger than NIU.
- shooting hoops in the driveway
- the happy feeling of being home and there to hang out when someone who moved away comes back for a little while
- summer bike rides to the park with the bro
- laughing for no reason at all with my sister
- hearing tales of “the office” from my dad around the dinner table
- my mom’s homemade dinners. cooking for yourself just isn’t the same.
- rocking in the rocking chairs on the porch watching the clouds move
- the clean smell of rain hitting the dirt
- being able to see stars
- driving around to see all the Christmas lights with my grandma
- playing on worship team at church
- randomly running into old friends at Walmart
- not having to take the freeway to get anywhere
- study nights at Panera with Erin…and drinking 10 cups of coffee just in order to be productive
- hanging out with Christie…and having midnight picnics at the park just to give the policemen something to do in this town
- having a key and the ability to camp out in the prayer room aka “streetside sanctuary” whenever I got the urge to break away for awhile
- being a nerd by watching “antiques roadshow” and “anthony bourdain” with my dad
- taking a midnight trip to Chicago on a school night with the girls “just because we can”
- packing out The Junction for a couple of hours with the Intervarsity peeps on Thursday nights after Synergy
- nights spent stealing auditorium chairs and going mudding in the high school marching band field
- crashing band camp and Tuesday night field practices with Betsy
- riding my bike down Mt. Hunger Road at 5 in the morning just to be able to say I saw the sunrise that morning and it was beautiful
- acting as a taxi cab for my friends while having a dance party and simultaneously screaming “who let the dogs out?” as loud as we possibly can with the windows down at a stoplight
- actually being able to perform Chinese fire drills without the possibility of serious injury or death
- being able to watch cartoons in the morning and eat my cereal on the couch, while laughing at the stupid hilarity of it all and not feeling like an idiot by doing so
- sleeping in a canopy bed on my fluffy full size mattress with poofy pillows. mmm.
- playing catch in the yard with my dad
- having the ability to hang out and have one-on-one conversations with my pastor, a person with whom I actually have a relationship instead of simply just seeing him on stage every Sunday
- being able to actually see and discuss a cubbies game (who are these indians you speak of? and why is it that you don’t show the cubbies at least at a sports bar, sheesh!)

of cardboard people and plastic smiles

Have you ever been in a store or a movie theatre where they have those life-size cutouts of people or celebrities that are forever advertising some sort of product? They are always airbrushed perfection; real people hiding behind a perfectly proportionate veil of human likeness.

Hello.

My name is Bethany Hawkins, and I am a cardboard person.

I think all of us, to some extent, are cardboard people. We all have masks...something that we are hiding behind.

For me, it's pretending my life is perfect. I have mastered the art of the plastic smile.

The plastic smile that says, "Everything is alright." The plastic smile that says, "Please tell me your problems so that I can ignore my own." The plastic smile that hides a broken one.

But this weekend, my cardboard person fell over and my plastic smile melted. This weekend, I had to remove my mask and be vulnerable...

...or lose some very precious relationships.

I praise the Lord that He has given my friends the ability to extend grace and mercy despite my withdrawn self. Mercy is something that I will never be able to understand. I have never been able to. It's just something beyond that which I can comprehend. I love to dive deep and tackle difficult logical and philosophical problems, but when it comes to mercy, I have nothing more than a very simple mind.

It's the simpleness of my mind that demands I earn the grace and mercy that is extended towards me. The paradox of grace though, is that it is something that simply cannot be earned. No matter how hard I strive, push myself, labor towards, struggle after, or endeavor to attain this thing called "grace," I frankly cannot. It's in the very nature of grace to be something unearned and undeservedly given.

I continue to pray that the Lord would grant me understanding of this glorious and supernatural concept because without His help, my mind can no more realize it than the mind of a cardboard cutout could.

in like a lion and out like...?

It is said that March "comes in like a lion and out like a lamb."

Man, I sure do hope they're right.

March has definitely made its entrance like a lion, and I've never been more scared in my life. And no, I'm not talking about the weather (although the weather has been crazy as of late).

I feel like I am walking on ice. or banana peels. or an oil slick. or something just as equally slippery.

I am running out of money.

Three years ago when I graduated from high school, I had $13,000 in the bank. Then over the course of two years by paying for college completely out of my pocket, my account went to $8,000. That's how much I moved here to Ohio on. $8,000. Now, 8 months later, I have a little over $3,000 left.

Bills continue to come in, school continues to be needed to be paid for, gas continues to be needed to be bought, and now my brakes on my car have gotten so bad that they absolutely need to be fixed.

I am not sure what to do.

I am not sure how long I can continue to live here on $3,000.

I have searched for another job.

I continue to search for another job.

[my hands have come up empty].

I have begged and pleaded with my boss to give me more hours, but it all has seemed to have fallen on deaf ears [all they've done is cut my hours further].

Yes, I am thankful to even have a job [the unemployment rate in Ohio is 8% and rising]...

but my fear is starting to get the better of me.

I know that God has promised in his word to take care of me, and lately the only passage that has gotten me through the day is Matthew 6:25-34...

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

But gosh darn it, I'm worrying about tomorrow!

Faith is such a hard thing to learn.

The one thing that's really bothering me though is my giving to the church.

A couple months ago, my mom and I had a talk about tithing and she said that I need to be giving, regardless of how I am doing financially. I agreed, and she said that I shouldn't worry about giving 10% right off the bat, but instead start with 5% and work upwards from there as I make more.

So I have been trying to give 5% and last week I gave $20 to the church (5% of two paychecks) but it was so darn scary! I'm really trying to hold my money in an open hand, I mean, it's all God's anyways, right?, but trusting that God will bless me back in return is the hard part.

God, can I get some help down here?
Some help would be really really nice...