Save Changes

Do you remember a time in your life where you found yourself with a big goofy grin on your face and butterflies in your stomach? Like everything was just so happy and splendid in a single moment. I think back to a few times in my life where my happiness just could not be contained. When my mom and dad got me and my siblings the cutest little puppy we had ever seen after years of pleading. When that boy said he liked me too, and he wanted to skate with me at the skating rink on the next field trip. When I saw One Direction in concert, and realized I didn't care about boys at skating rinks anymore, but I did care about Harry Styles. That feeling, the happy mushy gushy, put a spring in your step kind of feeling, that is something that I find myself feeling a lot more as my days go on. I look back on the last few months, and I can't help but smile. Not just at the memories I've made, but the ones that haven't even happened yet! That's not to say that I wake up every

Do you ever have that one topic you will avoid talking about at any cost? It's just something you hate talking about, and it makes you want to crawl inside a shell and never see the light of day again? Maybe it's a few topics. I know for me there are multiple, for sure. These topics/questions include, but are not limited to, the following: Things I did in middle school/high school Haircuts from the past "So do you have someone special?" (No, grandma, I don't. Thank you for your concern.) The amount of coffee I drink One Direction's hiatus (It's a break,  not a break up. ) Lately, the questions that really work my nerves are these: What are you doing? Where do you go to school? Really, these questions shouldn't bother me as much as they do, but they do. They just do.  Have you ever see that Saturday Night Live skit about the turtle shirt? It is hilarious, and perfectly depicts how I feel when people come to me with these questions. The whole

I have now been home from Southeast Asia for over a month. I have not been able to form any coherent thought about coming back to America. It is more of just a weird sensation in the pit of my gut. I can't seem to make sense of any of my experience, except the occasional, "Oh yeah, that happened." When asked about my time overseas, the most common question is this: How was your trip? When asked this question, I feel the same emotions twirling around in my stomach and up to my heart each and every time. These include happiness, gratefulness, and extreme feeling of blessing knowing what I was able to be a part of. But the emotions that no one wants to talk about start to show their faces too. These feelings of sadness, anger, confusion, and extreme sense of loneliness. I am so happy I was given the opportunity to serve with 9 other amazing women of God for three months in Thailand and Cambodia. In those months, I was transformed by the love of God and those around me, c

Over the course of this trip, I have come to realize my most important asset. This asset is not my intelligence, my wardrobe, or my wealth. This asset is my name. When my name is mentioned, what goes through people’s minds? When people hear the name Lauren Fox, what do they think? People I went to high school might think one thing, and my friends or family might think another. Some of them may laugh because of the foolish things I’ve done, and may refuse to take me seriously because of my past. Labels of “flirt” or “lazy” may pop into mind, all because of sinful behavior from years before. Am I always remembered positively or negatively? When I think of the name of God, I think of strength, justice, and unity. The name of God stands for truthfulness and faithfulness. He is the Name Above All Names. His name is good, and brings good thoughts with it. The name of God is peaceful and amazing and is a place of rest. He was the word at the beginning. Oh what a beautiful name it is, the

I would like to dedicate this blog to a few people. I feel like I need I give a big thank you to these people, and I hope I can string together my words well enough to make one coherent blog. And maybe make one person cry. Hold on, it’s about to get sappy and gross. To Destiny’s Child, thank you for recording and releasing your hit song “Survivor.” You are the basis of so many of my ideas for this blog. Just a few days ago, I started running 2 miles a day with my teammate Lauren. To prepare myself for this miserable journey of self improvement, I made an amazing “girl boss” playlist that you can find on my Spotify. There are about 53 sounds on that playlist, and I just replay that one about 6 times. It is your song that got me through those 2 miles. As your amazing voices played in my ears past my heavy breathing and (maybe) crying, I was reminded that I am indeed a survivor, I’m not gon’ give up, I am a survivor, and I will keep on surviving. To the guy that broke my heart, thank

My time in Thailand, though just beginning, has already been a trip. The past two weeks have been the toughest of the trip, by far, and I have struggled to adjust. From the beginning of the second half of the trip, in Bangkok, I struggled with leaving my new friends in Cambodia. Where I eventually found comfort in leaving them, I found a new brokenness being in this new place. This big city that I was trying to find a new comfort in, was seeming to break me from the inside out. The truth about Bangkok is this: it is a broken city filled with broken people acting out of their broken hearts. It is not a glamorous and beautiful city as I had once imagined. You walk the streets and you pass bar after bar among clubs and parlors that are all in business because of one thing. This is human trafficking. Let it be known that as I type this, I have suddenly been hit with the weight of this harsh reality. Maybe that’s why I’ve gone two weeks without updating anyone. It is scary and it is di