Do you ever get in one of those moods where you feel like no matter how many showers you take or how much deodorant you put on, you still smell like nasty armpits all the time? I've been in one of those recently. The kind where I feel like all I ever talk about is myself and I can't seem to stop. The kind of mood where I just know that if I was British I wouldn't have problems in my life. Like at all. The kind where I keep on acting stupid, and not in a cute way and not on purpose. Words just hop out of my big old mouth before I get a chance to give them permission to leave it and then my face feels really hot. The kind of mood where I'm annoyed with everybody all the time but also I love them. The kind of mood where I'm afraid that if I don't hang out with my friends, they're going to forget me and I won't have any friends at all in the world. The kind of mood where I get inexorably upset really late at night and instead of going to bed, I just listen to music that calmed me in my childhood and then am embarrassed by it in the morning. I feel clingy and emotional and I just can't stop. I'm in the kind of mood where I think people are joking when they compliment me.
I just feel like I'm nothing but a Laura in a sea of Laurens.
But actually...I am His cheeseburger!
If you didn't watch Veggietales as a child, I hate to be rude, but you had bad parents. It's vegetables (and some fruits) teaching little children Bible stories and singing silly songs that actually have meaning. Like this one. It's silly, but also so encouraging. I mean, I never really thought that being compared to fried food would make me feel better about my life, but here I am.
I know that when I'm in a bad mood, I want to stay in that bad mood. I enjoy being grumpy and I don't try to get happy when I'm snarky. I just stay snarky and then regret it later. So I hate to be that person who brings God into it, because that person always makes me feel bad for being so selfish in my crabbiness. But it's because I'm being selfish and it's time for me to stop.
And I know that it isn't always comforting or consoling when you're seriously upset about something of actual substance that "Jesus loves you." Because how is that going to help you decide whether you want to take a year off from college to work in a nursing home? How is that going to make your heart stop hurting when mean people deliberately hurt it? How does the fact that a big deity who cannot be seen or heard exists up there and loves you going to make you do better in your English class?
None of that stuff matters. The reason you're here on planet Earth in the City of Clemson on the campus of Clemson University as a student and also employee is so you can glorify God in everything you do. "Although you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy" (1 Peter 1:8). He plucked you up from the cold hard ground where you were whimpering and shivering and He kissed you on your cheek and held you in His hands until you weren't shaking anymore and He told you that you don't have to worry about a thing ever again. Every little thing is going to be alright.
So when you're stressing out about who's going to cover your shift at work this weekend when you're gone and what's going to happen if everything isn't perfect all the time and what if you're late to class, just chill out. The King of the world loves you. Max Lucado says, "On the eve of the cross, Jesus made His decision. He would rather go to Hell for you than to Heaven without you."
Doesn't that just make you want to cry happy tears?
It isn't that other things in the world don't matter at all, because they do. School matters, jobs matter, friends and relationships matter. But not nearly as much as the fact that you are loved by the Messiah and that He has called you by name. It is your job now, above everything else, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. In everything you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters (Colossians 3:23).
Because He loves you, Cheeseburger, with all His heart, and there ain't nothing gonna tear you two apart, and if the world suddenly ran out of cheese, then He would get down on His hands and knees to see if someone accidentally dropped some cheese in the dirt, then He would wipe it off for you, wipe it off for you, clean the dirty cheese off just for you!
You are His cheeseburger.
Love,
Lauralicious
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