I find it a challenge to write this post.
How can I put into words how overcome I am with gratitude for the simple fact that everything about my life at this point is carrying on with a great deal of normalcy? Normal is good. Normal is safe. Normal is busy, and dirty, and silly, and perfect. Normal is what I usually take for granted.
I’ve never been more grateful that my kids are losing teeth and making up jokes that may or may not be funny. How precious it is that we are still eating three (to seven) meals a day, tripping over dirty socks in the hallway, wasting time looking for our lost pencils, and trying to remember whose turn it is to clean out the dishwasher.
Nothing about watching my kids rinse their dishes or convert a decimal to a fraction is generally very breath taking. I certainly don’t typically feel a surge of joy when I see a dirty sock lingering on the floor.
Yet, because all of life got turned upside down for so many families in Connecticut just a few days ago – all I can think of is how much I deeply appreciate my “normal”. And how life for those grieving and hurting families will never be “normal” again – until the time when, by God’s grace and through His amazing power to offer healing and hope, they will settle into a “new normal”.
So I will gladly take the moments of chaos when all of the boys are trying to talk to me at once and I really can’t hear a word any of them are saying. I’ll take hearing, “Mom, I’m hungry” thirty-eight times every afternoon. I’ll take the never ending leaves that get tracked into our house by our kids and their friends. I’ll take my couch that regularly gets shoved across the living room and lands in the middle of the floor so that a game of Nerf soccer can take place. And the “Oops, sorry Mom” I’ll hear when that Nerf soccer ball gets kicked too hard and knocks yet another ornament off the Christmas tree. I’ll take the unnoticed yogurt drippings all over the front of a sweatshirt that later becomes crusty.
And yes, I’ll even take the dirty socks in the hallway. (Although I will also take the opportunity to remind the owner of the sock to quickly take responsibility for said sock…)
As simple as it may sound, all I can think of is that I’m thankful that my kids are doing their school work, or building Lego’s, or rinsing their dishes, or coming in to tell me about their latest music project.
So thank you God for my “normal”. All is right in my world, simply because my husband and kids are still here to hug.
For all of you who are hurting and grieving, I pray that you will lean on our God who is stronger and bigger than any pain we can experience on this earth. He hurts with us, cares for us, and holds us. He is faithful.
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