The most common advice given to writers is to write what you know, and that’s a great suggestion, but if the truth be told there’s a lot more that I don’t know than I do know. In fact, what I don’t know could fill a book, or at least a column.

My ignorance spans a wide variety of subjects. Take, for example, air travel. No matter how many times my brother-in-law Eric, who is a pilot, has explained to me the principles of thrust, drag and lift I still don’t know how a plane can fly without flapping its wings like a bird.

I’m frequently confused about current events, like global warming. I watched a special recently about polar bears and their plight to find food now that the ice caps are melting. The narrator explained that forty bazillion years ago the Arctic Circle was a warm climate, and then the Ice Age came and everything froze. Now, thanks to the irresponsible behavior of Americans (particularly SUV drivers) the Arctic is warming again, requiring polar bears to swim many, many miles to find dinner. I’m no scientist, but how do we know that the Arctic Circle isn’t supposed to be warm? Maybe the problem was that it ever froze in the first place.

And while we’re talking about science, how about the Big Bang theory? No one has ever been able to explain to me where the very first elements that caused the explosion came from. Either they existed in eternity (opening the door for an eternal God) or they simply appeared from nowhere (and who besides God can create something from nothing). Either way, it’s a God thing. Right?

I don’t know why the IRS allows me to deduct, without any verification, miles that I drive to writing related events but won’t allow me to deduct the book shelves I bought for my office unless I can find the receipt. The government just believes me when I say I drove 18.4 miles to meet my editor to talk about my column over iced tea and quesadillas. On the other hand, despite the fact that I can provide a photo of my book shelves laden with writing related items, I can’t deduct their cost on my tax return until I can prove I actually bought them.

I’m full of questions. Why did God make woodpeckers and why do they find the trees outside our bedroom window so attractive? How big, exactly, is a gigabyte and who measured it? How does Hostess get the creaming filling inside their chocolate cupcakes?

I’m useless in many everyday situations. I don’t know how to use a chain saw, change a flat tire, or program my new cell phone. I can’t bake a cake from scratch or hang drywall. I can’t follow directions involving route numbers; I need landmarks, like, “Turn left at the red barn and then go four miles until you see a chicken on a rooftop.”

To be clear, I’m not stupid, even though I can’t do basic addition and subtraction without using my fingers. I have a college degree and am an avid reader of everything from how-to books to classic literature. In fact, I’ve made it a goal to read the entire Bible this year, which brings up a whole new set of questions, the chief of which being, “How did God manage to refrain from wiping the Israelites out completely after he freed them from Egypt?” Talk about forty frustrating years. As a mother, I don’t know where God found the patience.

Which is why I think it’s important sometimes to reflect on what we don’t know. It reminds us that no matter how smart we think we are, God is always smarter, and we’ll have to wait until heaven to get the answers to life’s most perplexing questions. In the meantime, God has everything under control, even when we don’t understand it.

And that’s something that I definitely know for sure.