Inchworms

This morning I almost fed my baby a worm.

The spoon was halfway to her mouth when I saw something squirm, and I pulled back an instant before Kinzel devoured it with her typical breakfast vigor.

There it was on the silver, a yellow inchworm crusted with oatmeal, scrunching and wiggling like it sensed its impending doom. Fortunately, the trip it took was down the sink instead of Kiki’s throat.

Haferflocken is the German version of packaged oatmeal—at least, that’s all I’ve been told. Hearty, unprocessed oat flakes that are apparently straight from the fields.

Our breakfast drama led to a day full of burning questions such as:

• Shouldn’t an inchworm die when it’s boiled?
• How many worms have we eaten since July?
• Why am I trying to cook haferflocken?
• And what in the world am I doing in Berlin??

Days like today I’m overwhelmed by homesickness, wishing for a simple can of Quaker oatmeal. Quick oats minus the worms.

At our church this weekend, the pastor spoke about being in God’s will. He said God sometimes takes us places where don’t want to go—or keeps us in places we don’t necessarily want to be.

Today I REALLY want to be in Colorado or Ohio or North Carolina or Tennessee. There are fifty really great options on that side of the Atlantic for us to live.

Even more than what I want though, I’m learning to be open to what God wants, no matter where He leads. It’s an agonizing process. I have my lists of things I think I need. Places I think He should move us toward.

But that’s not how God works. He knows much better than I do where He needs our family to go.

I don’t know where God will take us next in this journey.

I do know that tomorrow morning, I’m ditching the oatmeal for something worm-free. Scrambled eggs, anyone?