Fabric Softener for the Chicken-Noodled Soul

Aren’t you intrigued? So am I. Not quite sure where the chicken noodles came from.

Come to think of it, my soul isn’t really of the chicken noodle type, which upon further thought seems rather bland, common, and panacean. (Yes. It is a word. I looked it up.) Maybe I have a chicken tikka masala soul, or a chicken fajita soul. Often, I feel abnormal, adventurous, gravity defying (just kidding), which chicken noodle soup definitely isn’t.

But the lack of chicken noodleys in my soul has sometimes caused this argument between me and God. Chicken noodleys settle down nicely in a quiet town and get their adrenaline rushes from pricking their fingers while quilting a quilt that’s been quilted before.

Not me. I wanted out, I wanted different, I wanted far away. Have you ever seen someone in Africa or Asia eating chicken noodle soup? I don’t think so. Chicken noodle was not the life for me.

Side note: The word “noodle” is beginning to look particularly strange.

And I did feel God calling me, sometimes, to the parts of the world that had no chicken noodle soup. The exciting parts. The dangerous parts. I was tired of chicken noodle, so I grabbed on to that vision with all I knew how. Take me away from this chicken noodle hell! (I cried quite dramatically.)

But lately, I’ve realized (read: God has been pounding into my head) that however much I might have looked down on the chicken noodleys, God is at work everywhere. Even in the capital of chicken noodle.

Bottom line: While I might very well end up in Ireland or Russia or India or Rwanda, I’ve gotten to a point where I’d be content to stay in the United States. (This is a rather large deal.) I’m almost at peace with the suburbs. And if God works very, very hard, I might come to accept Texas.

The result of God softening me up is that now I have even more options, even more questions. Gee, thanks. But I’m okay with that. I’m okay, because I now know that wherever I find myself, God is there too. And he’s put me there.

It may seem like Following God 101, but it took me an awful long time to pass the course.

PS: I apologize for the overabundance of really strange metaphors. The chicken noodle metaphor was quite accidental.