Can You Hear My Knees Knocking?

Both of my parents are teachers. My two sisters, also. Good teachers, all of them.

I am not.

It’s why I didn’t get a teaching certificate along with my history degree and why I don’t homeschool my kids—a very good decision based on how well (not!) I’ve taught my youngest son to drive! (He tells me he’s learned more from his older brother, who is, by the way, a natural teacher.)

The only time I’ve tried to formally teach anything was a Precepts Bible Study that only my best friend faithfully attended. (She couldn’t exactly bail because it was at her house!) After that, I swore off teaching at any level.

Which was apparently my downfall. Does that ever happen to you? You insist some task or role is beyond your capability and then—maybe right away or maybe farther down the road—the Lord asks you do to that very thing?

I am teaching tonight. Teaching writing. Teaching “Show, Don’t Tell” to be specific. In front of the monthly writers group I help lead. Can you hear my knees knocking? I’m terrified. But my cohorts in crime—my critique partners and writers group co-leaders Leslie Wilson and Mary DeMuth—insist I can do this. And I feel the Lord behind me blocking the exit and cheering me on.

We’ll see.