Hope. Coffee. Melody.

mirrors aren’t the only things…

Lauren Neese — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:08:08 +0000

as you can see, it’s been a while.

ive tried to figure out for so long why keeping up with this is so difficult for me, and in the past 8 months or so since my last post I feel like I may have a lead. I think I just really don’t like to deal with myself.

Lauren is messy and complicated and overemotional. She struggles with insecurities and issues from her childhood and finding the woman God created amidst the mess of being human. She’s learning, and failing, and sometime succeeding.

A lot of the time, I don’t much like Lauren. and I’d rather not have to really spend time with her.

I think the reason I don’t blog as much as I should is because blogging causes me to s.l.o.w. d.o.w.n. and think about what’s happening in my heart and mind, what my relationship with God looks like. When I face myself I have to face the mess i’ve made by not looking much like Jesus. I don’t like seeing something that isn’t so great.

I came across this today and it made a lot of sense with this whole idea

I am underreflective. And I think it has sort of begun to infect the person that I am deep down.

With Justin away at staff retreat this week, I took a little bit of time to sort of retreat myself, just in my house. I read blogs, and I sketched. I worked out and listened to good music. I took time to just be me, to hang out with Lauren and take care of her a little bit. I saw things that I didn’t like as usual, but it felt refreshing to just be still for a while. I’ve realized how much I need time for myself, as much as I would rather be social and busy and productive and successful, all of that is so tainted when I just don’t feel comfortable in my own skin.

so here I am, blogging again. And dealing with myself. and trying to clean up the mess i’ve made and trying to love myself a little bit more. I don’t want to always be overwhelmed and too busy to reflect.

will you join me?

love,

Lauren Ashley

I love Cincinnati

Lauren Neese — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:45:09 +0000

My church in Cincinnati, last summer did this awesome series called “I love Cincinnati”. Looking back through some of their videos today, I found this one they played as part of the series.

I spent a lot of my time in the queen city really not feeling content with where I was. If anyone asked me, my usual response was that I was ready to get out, I hated the city and I wanted to go elsewhere. It wasn’t until my last semester there that I finally began to fall in love with that quaint little ohio river city. I was finally able to change my attitude and view things more positively, and now that Im in Vegas, a part of my heart really really misses Cincinnati. Please watch this video, and maybe catch a glimpse of this sweet place I love.

Here’s the link: http://crossroads.net/downloads/playVideo/idMedia/898

Love,

Lauren Ashley

so nice to see you again

Lauren Neese — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 09:08:12 +0000

I haven’t posted in forever, but I think I have good reason. Here’s a recap of my last month or so:

Finish 20 page research paper and finals for my last semester of college
Say Farewell to Cincinnati friends and pack up life into my little accord
drive 14 hours to Dallas
Unpack car and see old friends
Christmas with family
Drive 4 hours to Houston to see boyfriend’s family
Drive back to Dallas, only to wake up SUPER early and…
Drive 12 hours to Colorado for Christmas
Christmas with family in Colorado
Drive back home to Dallas
Coffee Dates and photoshoots with best friends, lots of packing, and wonderful dates with the boyfriend
Drive 22 Hours to Las Vegas
Start New job in Las Vegas.

I am just now getting a chance to catch my breath. Everything has gone by so fast, I feel like I surely have missed something. I struggle when I don’t feel in control, and so much transition has made me feel just like that, but i’m sure God has brought me through this month for just that reason. Were I to have not gone through such a transition so fast, maybe I would have been more afraid, or more hesitant to just jump into what he had set out before me.

I miss Cincinnati already, but I am truly excited about my semester in Las Vegas. Im looking forward to meeting so many new people and hearing their stories, and excited to stretch my creative legs and be pushed in new ways. Im excited to discover exactly what it is I want to do with the rest of my life, at least start to discover it anyway. Everyone has already been so welcoming, and I already sorta feel a sense of belonging, which is very much what I prayed for. Praise Jesus!

I have had so many people supporting me in this transition, and for all of you I am so very grateful.

Now that my schedule has settled down for a bit, I’ll hopefully be posting some new photos in the near future- the sunsets here are incredible!!

SO much love to you all

Love,

Lauren Ashley

Sarah and Chris

Lauren Neese — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:01:14 +0000

I did my first set of engagement photos this afternoon, and let me tell you I could not have picked a more fun couple to work with. These two were hilarious, and they took some super fun photos. Im so excited for the both of them to be married and have the funnest life together. Here’s a little preview of the shots we got!

Love,

Lauren Ashley

Disco Curtis

Lauren Neese — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:48:00 +0000

last week a few friends of mine from highschool came through on tour with their band Disco Curtis and I got to catch up with them for a bit. They ended up crashing at my house to avoid a hotel bill, so we decided to take a few pics in the street. It was freezing, but we had a lot of fun experimenting with the flash and different lighting. These guys are way talented for only 18, and they are like little brothers to me. Enjoy

Love,

Lauren Ashley

My chance to brag a little bit…

Lauren Neese — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:51:16 +0000

I have really hesitated to blog about this for fear of being that girl, but I just wanna take a little minute to tell yall about Justin.

Photo by: Trevor DeVage

I sincerely feel like the most blessed girl on the planet to have such an incredible man in my life. Justin loves the Lord in such a devoted way, a way that challenges me daily. His heart is genuine, and he stands by his word. He’s patient, and kind and compassionate and more than any other quality, what I love most about him is that when he loves, that love comes from nowhere but Jesus himself. His love for God and his love for others because of God are his very best qualities.

The semester before Justin and I met, I had spent several months in a miserable season of depression. It’s not something I like talking about much because it was just that painful, but at one particular moment in that semester, I journalled asking God to remind me what his love looked like, because in my pain I had forgotten. I didn’t remember what it was like to be loved by God. I looked back at that journal a few months after meeting Justin and realized that he had been an answer to that prayer- he truly loved me with Jesus’ love.

Justin is the man of God I have always dreamt of having, but never thought I would get. I don’t deserve him, yet God has blessed me with his love and care and selflessness, and for that I couldn’t be more thankful. I pray I’ll get many more days, weeks and years with this sweet, wonderful man and that by our being together, someone else might see Christ more fully- not because our relationship is perfect or greater than any other couple by any means, but because they see how two imperfect, flawed people can find love through the love of Jesus.

thanks for listening to me brag about my fantastic boyfriend.

Love,

Lauren Ashley

Sarah

Lauren Neese — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:39:12 +0000

My friend sarah is such a joy. We went to this cute little area in Cincinnati (not sure what it’s called) this afternoon and shot around, me getting some practice in, and she was taking film shots for a photo class. We grabbed some yummy iced tea, and caught up on life. It was wonderful to spend some time with such a wonderful friend. She is a photographer as well, check out her stuff here.

Love,

Lauren Ashley

This is what I have to look forward to…

Lauren Neese — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:10:18 +0000

Las Vegas is sunny. and I have a sunny personality, and I hate gray skies. Las Vegas and I will begin our love affair in January. Hallelujah.

Love,

Lauren Ashley

So Loved…

Lauren Neese — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:38:58 +0000

I’ve never been so bold as to consider myself a writer. I have always gotten good grades on papers, and never been really insecure about my writing really, but I never really thought it was worth reading to anyone but those who really needed to.

This semester I have been taking a creative non-fiction writing class, and even though it was one of those need-to-graduate-don’t-really-have-a-desire-to-take classes, it has been surprisingly refreshing amidst the hundreds of pages of theology and history I read for my other classes.

and then it turns out that my Professor really kinda likes my writing, and he told me I should try to get my first piece published.

please don’t take this as me gloating, because I promise you that’s not it at all, honestly I am more surprised than anything. And I am encouraged. I feel like this could be a new creative endeavor for me, something to connect people and tell stories, which is really all I hope to do with anything creative that comes out of me. I just want people to be in community, and if they do so via creativity in today’s culture, then I’m all in. create, create, create.

anyway, here’s my first piece. I think it tells a pretty cool story

“So Loved”

She took my seat.

I had said farewell to my love to catch a 7:55 flight to Indianapolis that was, of course, delayed, and taken my trek to my perfectly cozy and particularly tight 24 F window seat only to find that she had taken it.

I was peeved at her.

Out of courtesy for the other passengers I kept my kindness and simply held up my boarding pass, “I’m…in…24 F” I said with a confused look that politely and nonverbally said, “can someone please explain to me why my seat is currently occupied?”

She was sitting there, in my seat, with her dangerously short white shorts and low-cut white tank top, scrolling through Facebook on her phone with her long fake-tipped fingernails. Her bleach blonde hair was so damaged from being stripped of all its color that it looked as though it could break off at any moment, with any punch of turbulence from the airplane. Her belongings were numerous, skewed all over the tiny space beneath the seat in front of her. Shopping bags, pink fleece blanket, Coach purse, leopard print travel pillow, all crammed in a miniature space to be somewhat shared by 2 others.

She looked up, realizing the line of boarding passengers had stopped because I was standing there, and attempted to figure out why. “What?- Ugh, which one is E?- I can’t even see the damn thing!” she spurted out as she climbed to the end of the row to see where she really belonged. “Fine. Ill just have to move my stuff in a minute,” she retorted as she moved herself out of the way to let me in.

I quickly curled into my cozy window seat (finally) hoping to not upset her anymore, though I was still peeved at the fact that I even had to deal with her.

I judged her.

“She thinks she’s something special doesn’t she?”

“She probably took the window thinking nobody would say anything and just give it to her, like she deserved it or something.”

“It’s freezing on airplanes, who wears shorts and a tank top? Real classy, honey.”

I kept judging her.

To pass the time she pulled out her pink iPod to listen to music, just as I was doing with my own iPod, yet hers was so loud I could hear every vulgar word of the rap song in her ear.

I overheard another passenger talking to the woman next to her about having taken the same flight from Cabo, stopping in Dallas for the layover. I assumed my middle-seat companion must have been there too, given the crafty Central American themed items protruding from her shopping bag. “She’s probably on her way back home from a crazy party weekend. How sad that that’s the kind of life she leads,” I thought.

I stared out the window at the rain, just happy to have some time to myself. I thought about the weekend I’d had, the great church service that morning, and how blessed I was to be loved so intensely. I put my headphones in and pressed play on the album entitled, “So Loved” by the Autumn Film. It seemed appropriate for how I was feeling, and the tone of the songs fit the mood with the rain and the quiet attitude of the plane. I wanted to escape into my own world.

After an hour or so, she rummaged through her multitude of belongings once more to pull out a digital camera. I glanced over as she scrolled through her pictures from the weekend she had spent with her friends. Images of her with her girlfriends in scandalous dresses, shots of herself kissing a variety of men. She stalled on a photo of herself in a bikini so small it could have fit a barbie doll, posed in a seductive manner with pursed lips and high-heels.

My heart broke.

I had been so consumed with my own personal agenda, so bent on judging her without even knowing her name, that I missed the fact that she too is “So Loved.” It hit me that maybe she didn’t know a life any different. Maybe she had never known pure love. She could have grown up in a circumstance where the notion of self-respect and dignity was foreign. Maybe she had zero clue how much she is worth to Jesus.

I listened to the lyrics of the song as my heart shattered in a million pieces realizing that how I had been to her was the exact opposite of what I claim to be an advocate of- Love.

The story in John chapter 8 of the woman caught in adultery had always been one I had always resonated with. I would read the words of scripture and identify with the woman, broken and hurting, with tears streaming down her face at her own shame. I saw myself and my own sin in her story, and rejoiced at the fact that Jesus demonstrated love to her and offered her redemption, saying “Go and sin no more” as the Pharisees stood there judging her.

But as I sat in 24 F, I found myself as a Pharisee, ready to throw my own kind of stone at this girl sitting next to me. I had failed to recognize that her heart could be as damaged as her blonde hair, or that Jesus offered her the chance to make it as stainless as her white rhinestoned tank top. In my own mind I selfishly denied her the seat of redemption and grace that Jesus offered her.

I spent the next hour of the plane ride praying for her.

And asking that God would forgive me.

I felt so small. My thoughts ran in a million directions:

“Who am I to decide where she sits? Whether she sits with Jesus or far from him? Her seat in the Kingdom is not up to me.”

“I hope someone will one day show her she’s worth more than that. That she doesn’t have to exploit her looks or her body to be loved.”

“I hope she knows today just how loved she is by a God she may not even know.”

I realized 30,000 feet in the sky just how far the love of Christ reaches. Not only to the girl sitting next to me, but I realized that it could reach to someone so judgmental and self consumed as myself. I remembered that his redemption has no limits, no constraints, no judgment.

She took my seat. But by the time I was finished sitting there, I wished I had simply given it to her, so that she could have seen that she is “So Loved.”

Love,

Lauren Ashley

This Gig is gettin’ real

Lauren Neese — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:51:17 +0000

So my photography has exploded in the last few weeks. I’ve had tons of shoots, lots of ideas running through my head and I’m having a blast with it. So now it’s time to make it official. Lauren Ashley Photography is going legit!

I will be booking shoots from now until December-ish at the screaming deal of $100!! This includes 1-2 hours of shooting on site plus a CD of 20-25 edited images, and also a lot of fun with me! Headshots, couples (engagement or otherwise), kids, families. I’ll do any of it!

I’ll be posting some more shots on my flickr account from the last few weeks if you’d like to look at some more stuff i’ve done, and I’m willing to work with you on whatever look you’re desiring for the shoot.

Let me know! We’ll have fun

email: laureneese@gmail.com or just comment on here and i’ll email you back!

love,

Lauren Ashley