The interesting part is that I was completely conscious (throughout the five-hour period of frenzied cake moving and icing smoothing) of the way that the situation needed to be handled. It was a delicate balance of wanting to freak out and cry… and actually dealing with each part of the solution with a level head.
Now anyone that knows anything about me will tell you that I am anything but level-headed, especially when it comes to my own emotions. Before I met God, I was of the opinion that every emotion arises inside of you for a reason, and if you don’t act on those emotions as honestly as possible, you’re missing out on a valuable opportunity to learn something about yourself. I still believe that to be true. Sort of. The truth is, I don’t know how I feel about my feelings. There are so many all at once ALL THE TIME that I can’t make sense of myself. Maybe that’s just because I’m crazy. But maybe I’m touching on a truth that applies to every one of us on this rock called Earth. We are all so lost in our own emotional junk all the time that we can’t see the truth behind life itself. And we don’t need to. Because if we did, if we really knew the true magnitude of our purpose on this planet all at once, everyone would just freak out.
One of my favorite books EVER is The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I think Douglas Adams is an absolute genius (plus Zooey Deschanel is in the movie version of the book, and I love me some Zooey Deschanel) and he touched on that same truth in the sequel to Hitchhiker’s, a similarly hilarious book called The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another which states that this has already happened.”
One human being telling another human being that they have everything figured out is so silly. To claim that anyone knows the cure for life… Hm. It just seems like a pretty bold assertion. I don’t believe we are all meant to know the answer to all of these things, but I do believe that the answer to some of life’s curiosities lay inside of each and every one of us. Deep inside, we all know that there is a force so far beyond our mode of comprehension that we will never fully be able to understand it in this life. I call this force God. He lives and breathes inside of each of us, tossing thoughts into our daily lives that make us stop and think, “Wait… what’s really going on here?” Those moments happen all the time, and we set them aside as if they mean nothing. But NO! When your train of thought is interrupted by a random feeling or emotion completely unrelated to what you were previously focused on… DON’T IGNORE IT! It means something. It’s God tapping you on the shoulder, saying “Hey you. Look over here.”
So… those of you that were paying attention may be wondering “What on Earth does this have to do with an ice cream cake??” And I don’t really have an answer for you. I do know that there is a definite correlation between handling stressful situations and knowing your place in the vastness of the Universe. Because when you finally have that moment of realization and say to yourself “I am so utterly and completely insignificant… why does it matter whether this icing looks like this picture or not? I’m standing on a rock floating through space and I’m crying over icing; this is just ridiculous.” Let me tell you, everything is important after you take that in for a while. The icing matters because someone wanted it. And that someone is just as crazy and freaked out as you are, no matter how well they disguise it.
Be kind to one another. And listen out for God. He may be talking to you right now!
