Normalcy

"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are... Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.  One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face into the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return."
      ~ Mary Jane Iron  (from A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God's Sovereignty by Joni Eareckson Tada)

I've begun and rewritten and edited and deleted and started from again with this post.  I'm not sure why but the words have not flowed easily.  I recently read A Place of Healing (It was free on my kindle - love that!) and it spoke deeply to me.

Reading this book also coincided with my sitting down with my pastor, Steve, and his wife, Joanie.  I had asked Steve if he knew of a good couselor in the area.  He didn't, but kindly offered to have he and Joanie talk with me.  One thing he noted - and it dove-tailed perfectly with the normalcy quote from Tada's book - was that for the past two years I have not known normal.  And when something like a reduction in meds or a call from the oncologist regarding blood sugar comes, it upsets the teeny-tiny bit of normal I might have.

And so I am driven to ask what my assurance rests in and on.  What do I trust in and rely on?  Is it a "normal" life?  Or is it on Christ and his great love for me?  (And I will be the first to admit I am no expert at resting on Christ.  It's like I am taking teeny-tiny baby steps here as I attempt to flesh out the reality of the gospel in my life.  I'm not really very good at it.  But as The Pickle says, "I will per-se-ver."    :)

 I am trying to be aware and be grateful for the normalcy of these not-so-normal days, months, years.

Joanie, Steve's wife, also challenged me with the question, "How good are you at calling up someone and admitting you need help?"  As my friend, Mary, said when I told her about the question, "Not very." 

Joanie also asked me whether or not I had realistic expectations for myself.  "Yes, I think so.  Maybe.  Well, I don't know. Probably not."  Wishy-washy much?  Do I determine my worth based on what I do or accomplish?  To some extent, I think so.  Although my expectations are much lower than they were before five kids, homeschooling, cancer, and myasthenia gravis.  I wonder why.

I'm grateful for a pastor and his wife who take me out for a smoothie and talk to me, ask me hard questions, encourage me, and make me think. 

And I'll strive to treasure these "normal" days.