Be Not Afraid: The Fear of Not Being Good Enough

I was asked to preach a sermon on the fear of not being good enough, tying it to Mary's story in Luke. God showed up when I picked up my pen, and this is what we came up with. 

Good morning! Some of you have heard me preach before, and some of you have heard me say that when the pastors ask me to preach a sermon, it’s always on a topic that God knows I need to learn a whole lot about. Well, today’s sermon is called, “Be Not Afraid: The Fear of Not Being Good Enough.” And God knew full well that I needed to work on this all week as I wrote it and practiced in my kitchen…so I just want to start off saying we are in this together today, guys. So before we begin, will you pray with me?

            Good morning, Lord. Thank you for bringing us together this morning to learn about how you view us and who we really are because of you, and thank you for never giving up on helping us learn and grow. Open our hearts and minds to hear exactly what you what you are saying to us today. In Christ’s name, Amen.

            So, we all know that it’s common to hear that Americans are becoming more and more afraid. Despite millions of advances that can improve our lives and statistics that show that our country is actually getting safer, I don’t doubt at all that fear is on the rise. I can feel it. Some people blame this change on the bad news that we hear and see in the media; others blame the new ways social media messes with our brains and with our hearts. Whatever the reasons, though, lots of people say that our culture is becoming more and more afraid.  

            Researchers have asked Americans what they fear the most, and many of the top things are external events that could possibly happen: war, corruption, pollution, losing a loved one. All of these things could happen to someone. But when they asked about what people fear in themselves, people talked about their fear of the unknown, and of not measuring up, of being inadequate, of not being good enough.

            As a high school math teacher, I talk about this with my students all the time. We talk about it most in AP Calculus. In that class, I have students who tell me they worry about their grades so much that they stay up all night studying. They come to me, terrified of what will happen if they get that test back with a grade on it that will drop their grade in our class, which will then drop their GPA, which means they won’t be able to get into the college of their dreams, and then they will surely never get the best job that they find both fulfilling and financially stable – surely, their whole life will be ruined. All because they weren’t good enough that one day in AP Calculus. At that moment, it feels like everything hinges on that one test grade. And they just keep working harder and harder, trying to be good enough.

            But my high school students are not the only people who struggle with this, right? Not that long ago, I learned about an experience called “imposter syndrome.” It’s the feeling that deep down, we’re about to be exposed as a fraud, as someone who doesn’t really belong here because we’re not good enough. When I first heard about it, I was so surprised – there was a name for the feeling I’d had during my first year as department chair, when I thought no one believed I should be sitting in that seat during the meetings. There was a name for the feeling of fear that someone is going to realize I have no theological background and no formal public speaking training, but they still let me stand up here and talk to you. Because you see, I was a kid who thought my life would hinge on that one grade in school, and there are many days now when I’m an adult who worries that I’m not good enough.

            The more I talk about this topic with other people, though, the more I realize I am not alone. After I found out I’d be preaching this sermon, I told a lot of people about the title, and so many of them said, “Mmmhhhm. Send that one my way when you’re done.” There are highly successful people all around us, people who have achieved incredible things in life, who outwardly convey confidence and ease – and so many of these same people also carry within themselves crippling self-doubt and intense fear of not being good enough.

Not good enough to run the meeting we were in charge of.

Not good enough to get that job we really wanted.

Not good enough for the promotion we worked so hard for.

Not good enough for that relationship to last.

Not good enough for God to want us in His story.

Not good enough for God to love us.

Not really good enough at all.

            So, you may be thinking by now – Cindy, it’s Advent. Aren’t we supposed to be talking about Christmasy things? Baby Jesus and Bethlehem and shepherds and angels and Mary? Well, you are right – so today we’re going to look at Mary’s role in the Christmas story to learn how we might deal with this fear of not being good enough.   

            So before we go any further, let’s read the story. Our scripture comes from Luke 1:26-38. (NIV)

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”

            “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

We are going to pick up her story again in a minute, but I want to pause right now and point out a few things that might help us when we’re afraid that we’re not good enough. I’m going to be honest, though – this is a tricky lesson for us to tackle. We have no proof that Mary felt the fear of not being good enough. None. Nothing in that passage I just read said she felt that way. However – by the end of the scripture we’re reading today, we will see very clearly that she definitely was not struggling with feeling good enough. So I’m not going to talk about how Mary dealt with the fear of not being good enough…but I am going to focus on the parts of her story that can help us get to the same trust in God that she clearly displays throughout her story.

So, the first thing I want to point out is how the angel greeted Mary – right off the bat, he says, “The Lord is with you.” Gabriel doesn’t say he’s there because Mary met all of God’s requirements for being the mother of His son. He just says God is already with her – before she had even heard of this crazy idea of a baby, much less before she could agree to it. God doesn’t come to us with a checklist of requirements that we have to meet before He calls us His beloved. He was with Mary before He called her to this special adventure…and God is with us before we realize it or acknowledge it, too. So God tells us we don’t have to be afraid of being good enough for Him to love us or use us because He is with us before we can do anything to be good enough. 

Second, Mary’s reaction to the angel makes me feel like we can be honest with God when we’re feeling afraid. Like I mentioned earlier, we don’t know if Mary struggled specifically with the fear of being good enough, but we do read here that she was greatly troubled, so much so that the angel decided to tell her not to be afraid. And then she asked a question – specifically, she asked about the very mysterious biological component of it all. Sometimes we think we’re not good enough because we’re afraid, because we’re confused, because our doubts outweigh our faith, because we just can’t figure out how to believe that God is in all of this – but these are all very human reactions and emotions. And while God will help us grow and learn and have more faith and trust in Him the longer we walk with Him, He understands that we’re going to feel this way from time to time. Even Mary asked, “How will this be?” If she can ask that, we can bring questions and fears to God, too. They don’t disqualify us from receiving God’s love or from being a part of His story.

            But if we’re feeling that fear of not being good enough, how do we move past it? How do we let go of the fear of not being good enough for God to love us and use us in his story? Well, let’s look again at what Mary heard that helped her say yes and jump into that role God called her to be in. When Mary asked “How will this be…since I am a virgin?”, she was asking about her own role and responsibilities in all of this. Maybe she wanted to know what she had to do to make it happen. But the angel redirected her focus. He didn’t reply with anything about her. Instead, he answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” It wasn’t up to her to get the job done. It wasn’t up to her to be good enough to live out the role God called her to. It was up to the Holy Spirit to make all these impossible things happen – all Mary had to do was say yes. All she had to do was agree to go on this adventure with God to change the world…and God promised to take care of the rest.

And that’s what God calls us to do, too. He doesn’t look at us and ask if we’re good enough to live out the life He wants for us. He doesn’t ask if we’re good enough to earn His love or tell others about Him wherever we are. God does ask if we want to join him. And like Mary, we can say yes, regardless of whether or not we feel like we can do what He’s calling us to. We don’t know what all went through her mind and heart to help her say yes – but somehow, she decided to trust God’s promises and say yes to God even when she didn’t have many details about how it was all going to play out. It’s not like the angel was terribly specific about the whole plan, right? And we don’t get a lot of details, either. But God asks us to trust Him, trust that He is good and that He will be with us the entire time.

There’s one more part of Mary’s story that I want to look at today through the lens of this fear of not being good enough. So here’s the setup – after the angel left Mary, she went to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, and when she got there, she was so joyful about God’s plan for her life that she broke out into song. Here’s what she says in verses 46-55 (NIV):

And Mary said:

“My soul glorifies the Lord

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has been mindful

            of the humble state of his servant.

From now on all generations will call me blessed,

for the Mighty One has done great things for me—

              holy is his name.

His mercy extends to those who fear him,

             from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;

            he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones

            but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things

            but has sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,

            remembering to be merciful

to Abraham and his descendants forever,

            just as he promised our ancestors.”

Reading Mary’s song makes me think she’s no longer “greatly troubled” like she was when the angel first arrived, and she’s not even asking questions about the logistics of the plan anymore – instead, she’s focused solely on how awesome God is. She praises God “for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.” She says, “From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me.” That does not sound like a woman who’s worried that she’s not good enough. So what is she holding onto to believe that she can live out this incredible plan for God? Well, God. She’s holding onto God, not herself. She doesn’t talk about what she’s done to be ready for this role. She doesn’t talk about why she’s the best choice for being the mother of the Messiah. She talks about the awesome things God has done, and how much He loves all of us.

            I’m starting to realize that my fear of not being good enough stems from what I’m focusing on – it’s not about whether or not I’ve done the right things or avoided the wrong things to be good enough for God to use me where I am and love me for who I am. It’s not about what I’ve done to earn anything. It is about what God has already done for all of us, and what I trust He will do so that I can live out His will for my life. God knows we’re not perfect and that we’re not going to get everything right, but he asks us to be a part of his story anyway. Mary looks back and references God’s promises and actions from the past…so that’s what we can do, too. We can go back and read scriptures like Ephesians 2:10 that says we are God’s masterpiece to remind us that He made us and loves us. We can read Colossians 3:12 that calls us God’s beloved, His dearly loved children. God is telling us He loves us because He made us. The question is, will we trust Him the way Mary did?

            I’ll end today with another story from my classroom, and I'll try not to cry like I have when I practiced. A few weeks ago, I was rattling off all the homework assignments I wanted my kids in first hour to do before the next test. One of my darlings asked, “What’s it gonna get us?” In my very typical and sassy way, I told him, “My love and affection.” And in all seriousness, he looked at me and said, “Don’t we already have that?” I stopped passing out the papers I was holding and just smiled at him. “Yeah, kiddo,” I said. “You do.”

            If my students, who I’ve only known a few months and who I work with for less than an hour a day, know that I’m going to love them whether or not they do their homework, if they know they don’t have to earn my love…then why do I have to earn God’s love? Why do I have to work so hard to be good enough to successfully live out the life He’s called me to live? I don’t. Plain and simple. And even though I understand it here in my head, sometimes that’s hard to believe here in my heart…but it is getting easier the more I talk about it here with our faith community. I can’t tell you to just stop being afraid of not being good enough. It doesn’t fade away that quickly. But what I can tell you is that today, I believe that God loves you and that God loves me, right this very moment, just as we are. And just like Mary, we can say yes right now to a life with Him, to whatever adventure He’s calling us to. We don’t have to wait until we think we’re good enough – because God loves us and wants to be with us right now, just the way we are.

Let’s pray.

Thank you, Lord, for loving us so much that you remind us we don’t have to earn your love, that a life with you isn’t something we work toward – it’s something we can say yes to every single morning. Thank you for telling us that we are enough. Help us believe it, and help us share that good news with others. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Immense gratitude goes out to Rev. Justin Snider for the freedom to write this as well as the sermon and conversations that served as my springboard for it. 

The Fish Fries

Tonight I spent the evening with my parents at the Oconee Fish Fry, chatting with old friends and making a few new ones along the way. We've spent the third Saturday evening at the Fish Fry almost every month for the last 23 years -- that's over 270 fish fries -- but next month is likely the last one. It's the end of an era in our family.

When we started going, I was just a kid. We'd meet my grandparents there and talk with everyone else who walked by...in a town of 200 or so, everyone knows everyone else. And my family knows no stranger, so even if we didn't know someone when we arrived, we knew them by the time we left.

Usually we walked through the door during the last half hour or so. The American Legion members and their wives working the meal -- all in my grandparents' generation -- would throw their hands in the air, exclaiming the end of the night was clearly near since the Arnold family had finally arrived. They'd all talk to my parents, but they made a point to include me and my sister in the conversation, too.

The man who Mom paid, making four more tally marks on his legal pad as we passed through the line. The bachelor brothers who served us from behind the window, flashing us big smiles as they filled our plates with french fries and fish. The woman who filled cups of tea and lemonade, asking us how school was and what we were learning. The woman who sold 50/50 tickets, chatting with my sister when she'd offer to pay for them and fill out each little slip of paper.

About five years in, my driver's licence was burning a hole in my pocket, and I made plans for a Saturday evening out with my friends. Mom reminded me that I'd be missing a night with my grandparents, and her tone told me the choice she expected me to make. True to my nature, I found a way around having to choose between time with family and time with friends -- I talked my friends into joining us at the Fish Fry. Looking back, I have no idea how I sold the idea to them, considering it wasn't exactly the cool new hangout for high school kids. Somehow, though, it quickly became "our thing." We'd waltz in with my family, sit and eat with them, and then head out to catch the late movie three towns over. My friends' families started eating with us, too, and we'd take over most of the long center table, talking and laughing and carrying on and generally making a scene.

Over the years, I've invited new friends and their families to the Fish Fry, too. The people working the event have changed...they're now my parents' peers, and our old friends aren't with us any more. I don't make it to as many as I used to, but that doesn't seem to matter once I'm through the door. So many of the faces have changed, but the sense of community and belonging hasn't. Tonight they still asked how we are, what we're up to, how the farm is, what's happening in my classes.

We still sat talking as they picked up the salt and pepper shakers and wiped down the tables. We still stood talking, coats already on and inching toward the door, as they drew the name of the 50/50 winner. For the first time, Mom won.

What a way to end on a high note.

The Alchemy of Potato Salad

As I grabbed the recipe for Grandma's potato salad, my second favorite food as a kid, I intended merely to scan it to see if I needed to buy any ingredients for the family reunion tomorrow. I stopped short on the first line, though: "Boil and mash lots of potatoes."

I am a decent baker. I enjoy creating food by following precise steps, using carefully measured out ingredients, and I'm pretty good at it.  I am also an excellent sous chef; I love to obey whoever is actually in charge of the food. I immediately knew that "lots of potatoes" meant that, despite the tablespoon measurements of mustard and Miracle Whip listed below, making Grandma's potato salad wouldn't be easy. 

In fact, my first reaction was to call my mother, who had written up the recipe for me when I graduated college, to tease her a bit and demand to know how to measure "lots." But I knew what she'd say: "Fill the pan. See if that's enough." I already knew she had just guessed on the tablespoon measurements in hopes of avoiding this type of phone call. 

So I did just fill the pan to see if that was enough. And it seemed like it would be. But as I began mixing it all together, the texture wasn't quite right; my first taste of it clearly needed more mustard. 

That's when I caved. I called Mom.

Moments after saying hello, I asked how much more mustard to add, and without really answering my question she told me it might need more pickle juice or Miracle Whip, too. She reminded me that Grandma never followed a recipe, and that I had to just add to it until it was right. 

I kept mixing as she told me her travel plans for the next day and about where they'd had dinner that evening. I muttered that the mustard had helped a little, but I was going to try more pickle juice next. She paused for a moment, and my thoughts tumbled out of my mouth. 

"I am much better with a specific recipe. Like your cookies. I'm great at making those. This alchemy of making potato salad is just not the way I work." 

"What's alchemy?" she asked. 

"It's the word they used a million years ago when people tried to make everyday things into gold. They just kept fiddling around with things trying to make it work. Like what I'm trying to do with this potato salad. Only they never figured it out..." I trailed off. 

I just don't like cooking like this. I'm not good at it. I like a detailed recipe. I like steps, with specific requirements. 

And as the thoughts formed in my mind, I realized I sounded an awful lot like my students when they say they just can't learn our math lesson. I never let them stop there -- we always buckle down together, keep practicing, and even if their results aren't a perfect 100%, we see growth.

I've learned recently that most times if I need to hear the advice I would give my students, God is nudging me to hear it.  

The monologue in my mind sounded familiar. I've been telling God something like this for months, years. I like plans. I like knowing where I'm going. I like having goals to work toward and to-do lists to complete. I would like to know what life is going to look like around the next corner. And the next. And preferably the one after that, too.

But I'm slowly learning that's not how this whole life and adulthood thing works. And it's not how faith works, either. God's not giving me a five-year plan to follow or even much of a big picture these days. I think sometimes we do get that kind of vision, but that's definitely not where I am right now. God's been asking me to trust Him more and more, live today in His grace the best I can and then try again tomorrow. 

See if it needs more mustard, and then try again. Maybe try pickle juice if that doesn't work. But always try again. No one is on the sidelines saying I should have followed the recipe; it was always meant to be made one step at a time, taste-tested, and adjusted as we go along.

********************

Afterward: I finally stopped fiddling with the potato salad after a while and just put it away, unsure of whether or not it was really ready. When we tasted it the next day, my whole family agreed it was just right. It's amazing what waiting a bit can do...but that's a lesson for a different blog post.

Sprinkled with Stones

     When I was growing up, my sister and I would sit in the decorative rocks that surrounded our house, sifting through the stones, searching for interesting ones. Pink ones, blue ones, multicolored ones; ones that showed fossils of what was surely a prehistoric lizard, ones that showed a million years of sediment gathering in a single space. Our dad worked with rock quarries, too, so sometimes he brought rocks home for us -- some were smooth and chipped off in thin sheets; others were crusty with layers of other rock or even concrete. Some he'd break open with a hammer, and we'd look over his hands, hoping he would reveal colorful crystals. By the time I was ten or so, we had two ice cream buckets full of stones sitting in the shed where we kept our bikes. We wanted to keep them separate, in their place of honor, revered as the beauties we believed them to be.

    As an adult, I started picking up interesting stones whenever I was out and about on adventures of different kinds. I kept them on my knick-knack shelf next to my framed family photos, my tiny china teacup, my penguin statue. The stone on the footpath in France that looked like an eye gazing back up at me as I finally felt God walking with me. The flat worry stone from Spain, found on a day when worries were hard to find. The handful of tiny stones from the beach on Lake Michigan, from that afternoon when we knew our friendships were changing but still held hope that they would last. 

     I wanted to keep something from those days that I could hold -- something tangible from those places that held so many fleeting memories, so many lessons, so much emotion. I wanted to be able to point to one and say, "That's the evidence. That day was real. I was there. I won't forget."

     Now I've been collecting these stones for over a decade, and they sprinkle my home in a dozen different places. Some still grace my shelves for all to see.

     But I find others in the most unexpected places. Next to my jewelry box, all mixed up with my hairpins and makeup brushes. In the bottom of a tote bag. On top my bookshelf in the corner of the living room. These stones still tell stories of lessons learned and adventures had and the spectrum of tears wept to laughter shared. But I can't remember which of them came from which place anymore.

     The path on the day I spent quietly watching the deer work her way around the pond.

     The top of the Great Wall of China.

     The banks of the lake after we'd all just floated there together, laughing, when hours felt like days. 

     Did I bring one home last summer?

     As I held the rough, pink one in my hand and thought of the smooth, brown rippled one in the next room, I knew it doesn't matter where they're from anymore. Doesn't really matter which one is which. They're now as much a part of my home's landscape as they were once a part of the places where I gathered them; this is now where they belong. They still strike a chord within me each time they catch my eye, and the memories -- whichever they happen to conjure -- are so woven into who I am that I no longer need to hold the stones just to relive the moments.

Fasting and Connecting

With my earbuds in, my breathing was louder than the cars driving by behind me. I closed my eyes and listened to the bird songs instead of the playlist cued up on the other end of those earbuds. When you looked plugged in, passers-by don't often strike up a conversation.

But plugged in I was not. Am not. Have not been for a mere week and a half.

What's the withdrawal timeline for social media? When will the symptoms of jitters, mild to moderate loneliness, and a general fear-of-missing-out, the dreaded FOMO, subside?

My social media fast is simultaneously liberating and painful. As one friend put it, I've given up being social, which explains the boughts of loneliness that have settled like tea leaves in the bottom of a cup after a bag has broken -- dark flecks in what is otherwise clear.

I'm no longer feeling the knee-jerking need to check my phone every three minutes to see if someone has posted something new. To see if someone's pet has done something funny, to see if a child whose parents I know has discovered four-letter words, to see if a friend has visited an event that I wish I had attended, too. I'm not watching the world around me through the lens of Instagram filters, and I'm not wondering how many likes a post about my cat or my students might get. I'm not thinking about how to share my own exciting news of being called "professor" for the first time, or when I should post to maximize the number of reactions.

That's what it had come to. That's why the fast was so important.

But there are still moments when I fear I've missed someone's engagement or pregnancy announcement or prayer request. And fear is not an exaggeration -- it grips at my chest, increases my heart rate, puts a pit in my stomach the size and weight of a bocce ball.

All of these visceral reactions have continued to flare up despite the phone calls from loved ones sharing their exciting news with me and the text messages from friends just asking how my day was or telling me about theirs. See? I want to tell my addicted brain. They didn't forget you.

And yet -- that's the real fear underlying all of this. Who might forget me?

******************

It's been five and a half weeks since I've been on Facebook or Instagram. 

Some days I don't miss it at all. Days when I would have been highly sensitive to how my potential posts would have been woven into my adventures, my interactions, my insights are now spent living right there in the moment. Some days I leave my phone in a different room and don't think to check it for the latest updates for hours. Some days I can even refrain from rushing to my phone if I hear a message come through.

Other days I still yearn to connect with everyone out there. Well, yearn to feel connected -- which doesn't always mean I'm actually connected with those people. Scrolling does not always result in authentic connection. In fact, I've found the ratio of time spent scrolling to time spent truly connecting is 100:1. That's just an estimate, of course.

Instead, when my people-homesickness settled into that space just under my collar bone, when my chest felt heavy and my brain started over-analyzing every detail it could cling to, I reached out for that authentic connection with people I love. Called. Texted. Emailed. Called again.

Prayed.

Listened.

Woke up and prayed some more. (Because that's also a real struggle.)

And I have learned from these intentional connections. I am loved. I am not alone. I don't have to know all the details for those details to fall into perfect place. I still love intensely -- it's not just a line on my Facebook profile; it's really who I am.

I don't yet know what it will feel like to scroll again the Monday after Easter. I don't know if I'll fall back into old habits, if I'll look for connection just to find a stale substitute but call it good enough. But I have hope that I might be building the stamina to simultaneously let go and reach out.

***

Making My Way Back to Words

"So why aren't you writing now?" he asked.

"I do miss words." I shrugged despite knowing it wasn't a video call.

"So why aren't you writing now?"

I articulated a list of responsibilities neither of us believed, and we moved on with the conversation. But words looking for an audience kept whispering in my mind.

Words are always in my mind. Always. I can think of only one moment in my entire 33 years when my mind did not have words in it, and it was fleeting and monumental. Spiritual. Even eleven years later, I am still amazed at how simultaneously my mind can feel full and yet empty of words.

Weeks passed. I talked with two friends on different occasions about their blogs, talked about the importance of drafting and then brought drafting up again with a student lamenting about timed writing assignments. I listened to another friend sing his original songs, heard his own words tell us of his heart. I picked up journaling again, started a list of reasons to praise God, considered a second trip through #100happydays, searching for a way to record my words.

I wrote more poetry than usual, thinking people might be willing to read about my mundane experiences as long as they were in verse. And if they were paired with a picture -- it had to have a picture -- then people would read it. I typed up my travel journal, a vulnerable one for myself and an abridged version that I shared with the rest of my mission team. I wrote a sermon on my adventure, and I collaborated with my friend on the pre-writing stage of a different sermon we gave.

And then the words pushed to the front of the crowd, demanding an audience. I stood in my kitchen, fork in one hand and bowl of scrambled eggs in the other, holding two separate verbal thought processes simultaneously --

Every time I make Mom's noodles, I start off thinking I've forgotten how to do this. It'll come back as soon as my hands start moving.

This will have to be a longer poem than usual. I have to say the part about the muscle memory taking over -- kicking in -- no, taking over. This poem will make T. S. Elliot look concise. 

Use my hands to mix the eggs and flour, add more flour to the sticky ball in the bowl, move this slightly less sticky and much larger ball to the rolling pad, and --

Now it smells like Grandma's house. That will have to be a line all its own. What if I just make this one prose? There's too much they need to know that would just be left out in a poem. 

The flour is flying everywhere -- it's on my shirt just above my waist, just like Grandma's all those years ago...Mom was wise to insist on a shorter counter in her kitchen.

Some people read essays. I think they publish books of them. Blogs are probably taking the place of essays. But who would read this? It's just me making noodles. 

"So why aren't you writing now?"

I know why I left words for a while. Because when the words are painful, or confusing, or lonely, or frustrating, or even just unsure, I don't want to leave evidence of it. For heaven's sake, what if my grandkids find it some day? What an awful legacy...
...of truth. Of learning. Of growth. Of reflection. Of the journey.

My fist immediately found the pressure the noodle cutter needed, but I frowned at how the noodles stuck in it. I shook my head. I sprinkled in more flour and, like the women before me, blamed the humidity. I sifted the noodles between my fingers, breaking them apart, letting them fall back into the bowl where the ball of dough had started. Again I picked them up, sprinkled them into the boiling broth, mine from an aluminum can instead of the re-purposed plastic butter bowls from the deep freeze.

Maybe I just don't know the audience yet. Maybe it's not about finding the audience at all. 

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