A Staff, Snake, and Brownies

When Moses was confronted with the burning bush, and the voice of God telling him to go and lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, he was a little resistant. He had several logical reasons about why he wasn't a good choice, and why God should choose someone else, and what if no one believes him.

 And so God asks him, "What's in your hand?". Moses replies, "A staff".

(This is my favorite part...) Then God gives him instructions to throw in on the ground and it becomes a snake, which freaks Moses out, and he runs away until God tells him to reach out his hand and pick it up by the tail, and it then becomes a staff again.

The thing that I love so much about this is that I imagine Moses giving his objections out of his own insecurities and then God says, "Fine, what's in your hand? A stick? Great. We'll use that then, so you will know this isn't about you anyway."

This idea "What's in your hand?" is beautiful to me. That rather than feeling insufficient for what we don't have, or who we are not, we can just run forward with whatever we're holding in the moment, because it's not about us anyways, and trusting that God can move in our lives as He chooses.

On the outside

When I jumped into the contest for Dream Jobbers and needed to create a social buzz for votes, I looked around and thought, "What's in my hand?" The answer was brownies and 8th graders. Aidan trotted off to school with a lunch bag stuffed with homemade goodies. Soon enough, we had quite a following. Some became so dedicated that they obsessively checked my progress, and created multiple accounts in order to cast a vote for all their family members.  Some people (who shall remain nameless) created accounts with names that could have only come from an 8th grade boy, and left comments with spelling errors and enthusiasm for my awesome skills. Voting spiked at Angevine Middle School's lunch hour. I discouraged plots to sabotage other contestants, offers to hack the system, and schemes to boost my street cred with falsified claims about my ability to cure cancer.

World Vision ended up picking someone who had in his hand some sweet videoing skills. Whatever. I still made some kind of impression on the tender hearts of children. In fact, just the other day, Aidan came home with a request from a friend who hadn't seen baked goods in a while. "When is your mom going to try to go to Africa or something again, so we can get some more food?" Brownies matter too, take that, video guy.

Fluffy, the broody chicken

In conclusion, here is a picture of a broody chicken. This is an example of a sweet, small brained, shy little hen, turned into a crazed velociraptor that chased the German Shepherd around the yard. Proof of what hormones can do.