The Girl with the Red Glasses

This earth is a pretty depressing place to live. People you went to high school with commit murder. Other people get sick. The sight of snow melting is one of the most disheartening sights ever because what two days ago was a glimpse of hope falling from the sky is now a half-here/half-gone view of cleanliness and pureness dissipating and you can't make it stay. 

All I can think about during winter, aka the cold version of Hell, is how cold I am. I am very much not an eskimo. 

Winter makes me think I'm losing my personality. The semester just started, so I'm not supposed to be bored yet, but all I seem to ever do is go to class, study, occasionally sleep, eat quiche, and sometimes work out (but more often, I just wear workout clothes and then decide not to actually do it). 

What if a little fraction of my spunkiness dies every time a skin cell dies? That's kind of often. What if I'm turning into a grownup: the boring kind? I feel bland. I feel blasé. I feel immature and trivial. The world has lately been beating me down big-time.

You know how light is technically the absence of color? Or how silence is the absence of sound? Winter is the same as the absence of joy. It's as if someone took my happy life full of in-season mangoes, Chacos, sunshine, and inner warmth and vacuumed all of those cheery things away. Now all that's left is dry skin and the need to wear leggings under my jeans every single day. 

But then a happy thing happened: last week, I got red glasses. They were just what I needed to give me a little sunburst of joy during the dry, cold, gloomy, pessimistic, dark, hopeless, seemingly never-ending time of winter.

I don't even wear glasses very often because I have contacts now (they make me feel like a grownup: the cool kind), but just knowing that I am the owner of the red glasses gives me a feeling of responsibility to live up to the standards that they provide. Even when they are in my dresser in my room and not on my face, I know that they are sitting there in their case expecting me to live up to my potential as the Girl with the Red Glasses. 

I wake up every morning and my red glasses say to me, "Good morning Laura! We hope you have a happy day! You need to know this to get through your day: you have not lost your spunk. You are perfectly adequate, 100% because of Jesus. You have joy in your heart and you get to shake love sprinkles onto the great cupcake that is life. Now go make some coffee and read your Bible." 

My red glasses are nice reminders that help me see what is important (get it? Because they help me see both metaphorically and visually). 

Sometimes my red glasses give me pep talks and they say, "Hey. You can do this. We know it's (freaking super incredibly) cold outside and you're already wearing three pairs of socks and still your toes are shivering, but you're going to get through this (at least you don't live in Vermont or Siberia). Really. Go drink some coffee or tea and call your mom because she can empathize, and stay inside if at all possible. Try not to get eaten by CAT buses. It's going to be okay. Jesus loves you and He likes you, even though you're completely insufficient to breathe independently of Him. He can make your heart warm (and your fingers, if you remember to wear your gloves). It's going to be okay, and one day, it's going to be spring." 

So what I'm saying is: winter is absolutely the worst. But joy is attainable. Jesus wants you to have joy because you can't teach other people how amazing He is if you're not happy about it. And if the thing that brings you joy is red glasses, then yay! Me too! 

Love,
Lauralicious

What a Privilege

College has taught me a lot of things that I didn’t know. I’ve learned how to study effectively, I’ve learned how important it is to not spill nail polish remover on my computer, my people skills have improved, I’ve learned how to say “cookie” in sign language, and I’ve discovered that I have anxiety.

When I go through a stressful/demanding situation, my natural reaction is stress. And I mean intense anxiety. I stress myself out so much that it feels like my stomach is spinning around itself and then I’m dizzy and I can’t eat and my hands are shaking so it’s nearly impossible for me to get anything done because all I can think about is how stressed out I am. It’s very pointless but I don’t know how to not do it.

On a somewhat-unrelated note, prayer is really powerful.

When I was seventeen, I was part of a group that helped build a house in Alabama for a man whose home had been destroyed because of a tornado. It was an amazing week and I learned a lot about how selfish I am but shouldn’t be. On the last day there, our group was trying to finish one part of the house before we had to come back to Clemson, and it started raining. We were frustrated because we wanted to get as much work done on the house as possible, and the rain was preventing us from doing anything productive. We all gathered under a tarp to stay dry and prayed for the rain to go away, and just as we said “amen,” the rain went away. It was amazing. We got to work on the house for a few more hours before leaving to come back to Clemson and everyday life.

There are a ton of other stories that show how important and effective prayer is. And still, I stress when I have a lot to do instead of praying.

The reason I do it is because I don’t have to make the decision to be anxious. I don’t go through an overwhelming situation then stop and say, “Now how am I going to react to this?” I go through an overwhelming situation and before it’s even over I’m sitting there reminding myself how important it is to breathe (it’s really important to breathe).

I was having coffee with one of my Camp friends a few weeks ago and we were talking about anxiety and how we both feel it, both for school situations and life situations, and then she said that when she is stressed she prays and then she feels an amazing peace straight from God, and I didn’t know what peace she was talking about because I don’t do that. When I’m stressed, I stress more. 

This is my skewed philosophy: I worry because somebody has to. Because it makes me feel like I'm doing something productive. But I'm not. It just makes me miserable and that's no good. 

I need to teach myself to reroute that anxiety to prayer, kind of like forwarding a letter from an old address to a new one: this is not where I live anymore. When I go through a stressful situation, I need to stop and pray about it instead of jumping the gun and turning into this tense, snappy person who doesn’t know how to smile.

What is the point of prayer? It isn’t to get what I want, although I like to think so. The reason Jesus keeps me around is not for my happiness. He keeps me around because He loves me and wants the best for me, so when I go through hard stuff it’s because He decided that’s what I was going to do that day.

As a great man named Joseph Scriven wrote, “what a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.” And it is a privilege. Once I do it, I feel so much better about whatever’s going on, even if I still don’t know what’s going on. My friend was right about the peace that God sends when I talk to Him about what’s going on. And even thought He already knows (and even planned all of it out for me, down to the millisecond) what’s going on, He wants me to tell Him because He’s God. It’s His job to be my Father. So I need to let Him. 

love,

Lauralicious

Dear Future Students

Dear future students,

Hi. I love you.

My name is Laura, and it makes me feel weird that one day in the future, you’re going to know me as Ms. Dekle. You probably won’t be able to say my last name right, and that’s okay. Most people can’t (and if they can say it right, they can’t spell it right, but I'm used to it by now so no worries).

One day, in a few years, I’m going to be your teacher. That’s kind of intimidating for me. I’ve spent my whole life planning on being a teacher when I grow up, and right now is the part where I am both growing up and learning how to be a teacher. I’m used to thinking about one day in the very far future when I’m a teacher…and it’s closer than I think. In less than five years I’ll be done with college and hopefully in less than five years I’ll be your teacher!

Here are some things I want to tell you:

You are awesome. I cannot wait to meet you. We are really going to have so much fun together. Sometimes when I’m in class I get bored (as I very much hope you will never do in my class, but if you do it’s okay and I’ll still like you) and I just think about how I’m going to decorate my classroom and how I’m going to use peanut M&Ms to teach you about the structure of the earth and the books I’m going to read to you after lunchtime. It’s going to be great. Mostly because you are great.

I’ve spent my whole life watching grownups and thinking about if I would want the jobs they have. There are a few I would do, but I've always known I want to teach. I'm pretty sure it's in the stars for my future. Always always have I thought about and dreamed about having a whole classroom of my own, with awesome kids to fill up the seats and put their backpacks in the cubbies and here’s the best part of it: you are those kids. You are the kids I’ve been thinking and wanting and hoping for.

I had always planned on being an elementary school teacher – I wanted fourth grade. And then I started working at the most wonderful camp for people who need special help with certain things but who are the happiest, sweetest, most sincere and lovely people I have ever had the pleasure of spending my time with. I enjoyed my time with them so much that I rerouted my life dream of being a fourth grade teacher to being a teacher of beautiful wonderful people like you.

I’m in a bunch of really cool classes right now that are teaching me about your physical and emotional development and what’s going on in your brain and how to tell if you need special help when you’re a really little kid. I’m learning so much about you – all about how I can be the best teacher for you. 

The thing about being a teacher is that it’s technically in my job title that I will do all of the teaching – the instruction, the assessments, the educating. But what isn’t said in the title of my job is that I’m also a learner, and you will be my teachers. You’re going to teach me about myself, and about how to love life, how to be a kid, and that's something I need to be reminded of quite often. You’re definitely going to teach me a lot more than just those things, as I expect I'll teach you more than just academics, and I look very forward to all of it.

We are going to have so much fun together. I can’t wait to hear you laugh and help you learn to read and teach you my very favorite morning song (the birdie song). One of my life themes is: “adventure is out there!” because it’s true. It’s everywhere you go. We are going to have a lot of our life adventures together.

You’re going to be my students, and even if I sometimes very rarely get somewhat frustrated with how things are going in our classroom, I need you to know that there is nothing you can do to not be my students. Even if you change classes or schools, you’ll still be my students. That makes me so happy.

Until we meet (for the first time),

love,

Lauralicious 

Seal it for Thy Courts Above

In church last Sunday to close the sermon, we sang "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," which is one of my favorite songs. At the part where we sang, "here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above," I had a cool idea. What if, once we had committed our hearts and lives to Jesus, we never sinned again? How cool would that be? It would be like when you're canning jam and you seal the jar, only our hearts would be sealed. When a canning jar is sealed, nothing can get in or out of it until the seal is broken. We could stay on earth with our hearts sealed, like unperishables, so we wouldn't sin anymore, but we could still further God's kingdom somehow. And then when we got to Heaven, He could break the seals and open us up and then everything would just be perfect and we would worship Him always and forevermore. 

But that's not how life works. Once we commit our lives to Jesus, we still sin just as much as we did before. It's constantly inevitable that I am going to sin all the time and that makes me so frustrated. 

If that was how it worked - that once we gave up our lives for Jesus, we stopped being sinners - there wouldn't be a point. We wouldn't need God to uphold us and we wouldn't have to learn to have faith and trust (and a little bit of pixie dust! Just kidding) in Him, because we would be sinless. 

It would be really nice if we could all be unperishables. Like cans of corn or green beans that don't expire for years and years and are more healthy for you than Swiss Cake rolls. Like the cans that you're supposed to collect for a can drive to benefit people with no food. It's not bad, it's just that there are better things out there. Real vegetables that actually expire and aren't stewing in salt are better for you. 

Perishables are better than unperishables, both in a vegetable aspect and in an eternal aspect. We are perishable because we have to die to self every day, to daily take up our crosses to submit to God's obviously better plan for our lives and days. 

So - "here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above" I think means something more like God has a claim on us. We're still sinners and terribly selfish people, but we're God's sinners and terribly selfish people, and He loves us, and when we die, we go to Heaven because we are His. If we stopped sinning once we gave our lives to God, we wouldn't really "need" Heaven, because we would already know what it's like to be in a sinless place. 

This is just another time that it is shown to me that God's plan is greater than mine. His ideas are better than mine and He knows what He's doing and I don't. 

As I learned from Veggietales, "the Lord has given this land to us, no need to fuss, He knows what He's doing, we know that He will take care of us, and we will follow Him." Let God be God. 

Love,
Lauralicious

The Wages of Netflix

I've been reading Radical recently, which is great. It's been convicting and thought-provoking. The author, David Platt, points out in one chapter that we are slaves to sin. As a privileged white girl, I've never been enslaved, which is fortunate for me. I've never been a victim of any kind of human trafficking. I've grown up and spent my whole life in a well-lit community and I'm never in any real danger (and if it is, it's because I've done something dumb like tripped over my own feet). I get to make my own decisions about what kind and how many pairs of shoes I have, and I'm financially indebted to my parents, but that's normal for a nineteen year old girl. I'm free. I am a free individual. 

But I have been a slave to Netflix. It's embarrassing to say but it's true, and I don't mean to make light of our slavery to sin at all; this is just the closest thing I know to slavery, and it's awful. This semester I watched Gossip Girl, which I loved. It was glamorous and so fun. However, it got the point where all I could think about was Gossip Girl. All I wanted to do was watch it. I didn't want to go to class or study or eat or hang out with people or go to sleep because I wanted to watch GG all.the.time. And I did watch it a lot of the time, and I realized that it was all I cared about, but I still couldn't stop until it was all over. I was miserable. I began to resent GG for making me care so much about it. I didn't enjoy it as much as I had when I started, because I just wanted to finish. I just wanted it to be over. 

I needed some kind of deliverance to come to me and snap me out of my weird Gossip Girl funk. I needed someone to tell me that my life is more important than GG. Even biology is more important than GG, and that is significant because I really do not hold a very large appreciation for biology. 

Being freed from slavery is quite different in literature than it is in real life. For example: in Harry Potter, all Dobby needed to be freed was a sock, and then Dobby was a free elf. It takes more than foot-warming material to make me free. And God is willing to give whatever it takes.

In John 8:31-38, Jesus tells some people that the truth will set them free, and then they sass him and say that they are not enslaved and don't need to be set free from anything. Ha, ha, silly people. Jesus tells them, "Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the Son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." If you apply that to Netflix, then it means that everyone who watches Netflix is a slave to Netflix...yup, sounds about right (just kidding...but only a little bit kidding). The Son, Jesus, sets us free. We cannot remain in the house of God, because we are very much not worthy or righteous at all, but the Son, Jesus, is the only one who can, and since He is in our hearts and we belong to Him, we can remain in the house of God forever with Him. We are free from sin and we get to live in the house of God forever and ever, and it is a much better place to live than anywhere else. It's better than a house on the lake and better than any cute little farmhouse on acres and acres of land with a pond. If you recall what God's house is like from childhood, you will recall that it is "a big house with lots of rooms, with big big tables, with lots and lots of food. There's a big big yard, where we can play football (touchdown!). It's a big big house - it's my Father's house." The reason it's so special is not because of the lots of rooms or the big big tables with lots and lots of food or the big yard where we can play football (touchdown!). The house of God is so so dearly special because it's where He lives and where we get to be near Him. 

Romans 6:15-23 says that we are slaves to the thing we are obedient to. I was absolutely more obedient to Netflix than I was to anything else during that time I was watching Gossip Girl.  Romans 6:21 says, "But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed?" The only fruit I was getting from Gossip Girl was the fictional drama that I observed (and the really nice clothes the characters wear). I wouldn't say that is fruit at all; I would say that's maybe junk food instead of fruit. I was learning nothing helpful for me. And I am now ashamed of that. Then verses 22-23 says, "But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." 

I'm picking a lot on Netflix, but really and truly I love it. This was just me learning a valuable life lesson in moderation. For the wages of Netflix is misery and bug-eyes, but the liberation from it is fresh air and joy and social interactions and productivity.

We are slaves to sin but we are set free from sin when Jesus comes to earth to replace Himself for us. And then we become slaves to Him, and all of our strength comes from Him. We can do nothing apart from Him. The freedom we find in Him is so much sweeter than the reckless freedom we thought we had when we were in sin. We are given the free gift of God: eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Love, 
Lauralicious