laura gould

I recently finished reading Hind’s Feet on High Places, an allegory that depicts the spiritual journey a crippled girl named Much Afraid takes to be united with God.   The Shepherd (Jesus) calls her away from her family on this long, treacherous journey to the High Places.   He gives her the companions Sorrow and Suffering to guide her on this dangerous path.   She holds their hands through much of the Journey, although she literally feels pain from hanging on to them.   One of the places she journeys through is the Sea of Loneliness.   Its winter and she just walks along in the Lonely for a really long time.   A little bit later when she makes it to the High Places (a mountain), she bathes in the healing waters (where her legs are straightened out and her bumps, bruises and cuts disappear) but she is up there alone on the beautiful mountain for a little while before the King (God) comes to see her and take her to even higher places.   What stood out t...

I jumped in to a convo some guys at work the other night were having about women.   I think they were complaining, actually.   Apparently we've been feed Disney fairy tales and chick flicks since we came out of the womb and have this skewed view about our expectations for the perfect guy.   My response to them was, "Well, yeah, I figured out over time that most guys, even the decent ones are assholes."   And I really believed that when I said it, and they agreed with me.   But then my buddy Drew brought up the point that they aren't necessarily assholes, it's just that women are sensitive to things that men necessarily aren't and both sexes have expectations that differ from one another.   And we talked about it for a while, but by the time I left work I  wanted to cry.   I have been hurt by a guy or two in my life, but I also know that it IS true about Disney fairy stories, they are in fact FICTIONAL.   At the same time I felt discouraged be...

Found these quotes about the difference between boys and men. Pretty interesting. I've dated both. "Boys are students: Men are teachers Boys are consumers: Men are producers Boys play with toys: Men work with tools Boys break things: Men make things Boys ask questions: Men give answers Boys are disruptive: Men bring order Boys run in gangs: Men organize teams Boys play house: Men build homes Boys shack up: Men get married Boys make babies: Men raise children A boy won't raise his own children: A man will raise his and somebody else's Boys invent excuses for failure: Men produce strategies for success Boys look for somebody to take care of them: Men look for somebody to take care of Boys are present-centered; Men are time-balanced, having knowledge of the past and understanding of the present and a vision for the future Boys seek popularity: Men demand respect Boys are up on the latest: Men are down with the GREATEST." PS- boys are a waste of t...

Lord, immerse me in your love that I might love others. If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, Doesn't have a swelled head, Doesn't force itself on others, Isn't always "me first," Doesn't fly off the handle, Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, Doesn't revel when others grovel, Take...

written in 2007.... I'm trying to do homework right now...theology homework...but I'm thinking about other topics besides Pentecostal Soteriology. I'm thinking about truth. I'm thinking about love. I'm thinking about justice. I'm thinking about how I have come to believe the things that I believe....and I've been thinking about these things for years. I love Jesus. And I want to know Him. I don't want to develop a theology or philosophy on life...and I want to know Christ and the power of his ressurection and the fellowship of his sufferings. I think the most important thing in life is how I live it. How I love people. How I forgive people. I mean those things are the most important things. I could think and write notes and blogs and posts and go on and on about lofty ideas but if my life does not reflect any of these thoughts, I'm just a sounding brass or a clanging symbol. I get frustrated with myself because I'll talk about int...

Written in 2008: I've been listening to the Narnia series the past few days (I've been driving a lot...helps me stay awake...plus I never finish books, I finish audio series' though). Anyway, I know that C.S. Lewis wrote them as fictional stories, not allegory, but there's no question in my mind of the symbolism and reflection of his theology within every story. It has really helped to put into pictures and characters and conversations what faith and life and truth are all about in Christianity. I've been moved to tears, had epiphanies (yesterday was the day of Epiphany), and felt inspired and empowered. I HIGHLY recommend these books to you. Truth has been on my mind. And God. And Jesus. I mean, how is it possible to really know God? And how can I know that what I have come to believe growing up in rural conservative America is the actual truest truth? Is Christianity really the truth? Why is there evil in the world? If God is really good, sovreign,...

Written in 2008... I know so many people that love the quote "Be the change you want to see in the world." People my age love those kind of inspiring, life-changing quotes. I love those kinds of quotes. It sounds great and makes me feel empowered. However, I find it very difficult to go beyond that impassioned feeling that makes me say inside, "yes, I think I can change the world!" to the monotonous, day-to-day difficult decisions that help me work towards being a better person. For example, "going green" is really big right now. It's the trendy thing to do. But, maybe it's just me, but going green takes a lot of effort. I have to buy these squiggly light bulbs that cost a little more than regular ones. I have to find a recycling center and keep track of paper, plastic, bottles, and cans that I can recycle. But it is so much easier and convienient to throw things away. And that's what most people do...just toss them in the garba...

I wrote this one in like 2008.... A couple weeks ago I listened to a talk given by Floyd McClung Jr. The overall topic was being a good and loving neighbor. He's passionate about loving others though service and making yourself available for the Holy Spirit to work through you. In the middle of the talk, he reflected on his experience at Bible College: "For four or five years people were storming through school to learn something and became very calloused and cynical in the process. I don’t know of a greater hot bed of cynicism in the United States than Christian Colleges because you can see it all and get all the theory and practice very little of it because you don’t have time. That’s a dangerous state to be in. If you have to take ten or twelve credit hours and take 6 years to get through but you become what you’re learning, you’ll be a far wiser person. Don’t hear it and not practice it. The biblical words for knowledge never separate the cognitive processes fr...

My best friend has thumbs that are considerably shorter than most people's thumbs. When she was growing up, she started noticing that other people had longer thumbs than she did. She would think, "Oh, so-and-so has weird thumbs." She continued to see that people had different thumbs than she did and would continue to think that their thumbs were strange. Then she realized that EVERYBODY had weird thumbs. Her best friends, her family, people at school, etc. Then it dawned on her, "Oh, I'm the one with weird thumbs!" It's interesting how a person's first inclination can be that the people around them are the ones with issues. This can continue on for a long period of time until they realize that everyone around them has all of these problems that they need to fix or change. Now they can continue to think that everyone around them has this or that wrong with them, or gain some perspective and realize that they are the ones with the problem M...

I remember the entertaining discussion I had one of my Old Testament classes at Lee surrounding the passage in Exodus where it says that Moses is the most humble man that ever lived. It's funny because a lot of people think Moses wrote the book so the irony is apparent: if Moses was truly humble, would he write it down with the intention that people in his culture would be reading it for centuries? If a person goes on and on and on about how humble they are, are they in reality a humble person? What is humility really? I think humility is something that cannot be put on, but something that comes from within, like the fruit of the spirit. You can't wear peace for a day, but the next day be completely anxious and chaotic, just as you can't be on cloud 9 one day and completely depressed the next and claim to have joy ...these characteristics can only be produced in a heart that has truly submitted to God and received his grace, love, and forgiveness as a completely unde...

I just finished reading that lovely book by Hannah Hurnard and thought to myself, "what would my journey look like?"  And this little allegorical poem came to me.  It needs editing, but here is the rough copy: Once upon a time there was a little girl With a heart very much alive and free She was full of love and sung the King’s song What a beautiful thing was she Her heart’s desire was only to sing and sing And fall in love with a prince, making a family of her own Where she could sing to her babies The sweet songs of the One on the Throne Little did she know that her great enemy The cunning, slithering Deceiver, the snake Desired nothing but her utter demise His goal was to take her soul, and her spirit break He gathered his best, meanest fiery darts With which to plant his ugly seeds One day when the little girl was picking daisies He pierced her heart, planting a weed She had a love tree growing inside her heart A precious gift from her beloved King But as ...

When Jesus came to earth and said he was making all things new, he meant that he was setting everything that is wrong in the world to rights.   When he came he wanted to communicate to the world that he is the answer to everything.   We have known death, pain, sickness, disease, poverty, violence, bitterness, broken relationship, divorce, pollution, greed, anger, and everything else that makes us cringe, writhe, and seethe with anger and despair.   The injustice and un-rightness of it all speaks that there must me a right, there must be something better, there must be a truth.   We have a need for righteousness; for the Kingdom of God.   Jesus is the only way to make things better.   Jesus came and literally healed the sick and raised the dead which communicates that in his kingdom we aren’t meant to suffer and die, but live forever in health.   He came and brought the power to reconcile relationships because we aren’t supposed to have animosity or ha...