Nothing is more telling of the real you than when normal is torn away and unreal becomes reality. Normal is not just the American dream. Normal is what you are accustomed to. Normal is surrounded by predictable bite sized savory morsels of life sprinkled with surprises of joy and disappointment. Normal is agreeing with most around you and tolerating those who are different. Normal is the toilet seat down, toilet paper draping over the top, the dishes needing to be washed and laundry to be done. Normal is life flowing as it usually does at your level of existence with expectation that it will continue. Normal is doing the best you can to enjoy the life you have been given by the choices you have made within the circumstances God has placed you in.
Normal doesn’t seem to last. Airplane pilots have described their time in control of all sizes of magnificent flying machines as hours of tedious boredom interspersed with moments of stark terror. Normal is what we have the most of. The terror is when normal has abandoned us and we look desperately for someone to be of greater ability than the monster that has just ripped normal from us. Normal for a soldier may be the everyday expectation that injury or death to themselves or their fellow soldiers is a very real possibility. Normal for a school teacher is each day presenting the information they have in a manner which can become the building blocks of a successful life for their students. Normal for you is different than for me but maybe not all that much. Normal is life as we know it and then, often suddenly, normal is not.
It is ripped from our lives when two vehicles collide in morning rush hour traffic. It escapes our grasp when the company closes its doors and we are left unemployed, uncertain and unable to cope.
It disappears when we discover the doctor has unexpected news that means struggles and change and uncertainty. We like predictable. We feel secure in certainty. We desire normal to continue. When it is gone we search for a new normal. The soldiers determine to learn to live with the mechanical limbs that will help define their new normal. The spouse who has recently celebrated the anniversary of many years of marriage must now wake up each day to a new lonely normal. Children must comprehend what it will be like to develop a new normal without their parents and perhaps the cruelest change of all, parents will look at a future without the child they have just buried. It happens far too often but parents do not expect to bury their children. It is not normal.
“Normal then” is no longer “normal now”. The new normal must adjust the expectations of the old. The new normal justifies and moderates and makes room for life to continue without the old normal. When it is death, new normal becomes memories, pictures, and remembrances of words spoken. New normal means unfinished business from old normal will always be unfinished. New normal becomes the next breath and heartbeat and sunrise that continues life, with the old normal becoming “what was”. Someday, without doubt, you and I will become part of the new normal when the normal that is ours is undone by the normal which will be. The terror, the disappointment, the change which comes will be the signaling of the changing of the guard. Whether it is someone departing from us in death or perhaps our own graduating from this life, the change will come and normal, the new normal will become, normal.
It will be different emotionally, spiritually and even physically. It is normal that you should expect a change; perhaps many changes. Sometimes it is a measure of our character to respond to the “no longer normal” as we do. Sometimes it is a testimony to the inexhaustible Grace of God in our lives that we survive the change at all. So how do we adjust to the new normal? We do it individually, uniquely and with much fear and trepidation. Yet the individual often cannot slip into the new normal without the love, care and intervention of others. Sometimes helping someone else adjust to the new normal helps you to find it on a more solid footing as well. Uniquely because no two people are going to arrive at the same point, on the same path because each has a uniquely individual relationship with what was normal.
Yeah, this is going to hurt. No one can tell you what is right. We have absolute truth only from the Word of God. So if where we come to lines up with the dictates and principles of scripture then we know a stability that those without Christ cannot know. We all fear change, even good change. We especially fear the change which takes from us what we wanted to maintain. We tread lightly going forward, seeking to establish a less painful standing in the new normal.
For Christians normal is based on our faith is the unchangeable absolute sovereign God of the universe. Nothing surprises Him. Never is there a moment when He scratches His head and says “I didn’t see that coming”. Nor does it cause Him the least bit of concern that He allows us to choose. He already knows.
The choice to love Him and serve Him and to establish Him as our normal is, well for the Christian it is just normal. Nothing happens that He does not allow. Nothing happens that does not bring Him glory. He is normal. Life with Him, even with all of its abnormal bumps and valleys and changes, is normal. What is not normal, what cannot be reconciled, is life without Him. God is everywhere at all times. The fancy Latin word for that translates into our English as omnipresence. If you remove Him there is a void that is not intended to be. Life with God is good. The absence of God who is good is evil. Life or anything without God being present is a void called evil. That is not normal. What are you without God?
Lucifer was not evil when He was one of the three archangels of God. He embodied evil when He kicked God out of his life. Adam and Eve were normal, in the garden, loving God. When they left Him out of their choice it became an evil thing. Normal was pure and innocent. A new normal came to be. We know it as sin. In order to be normal again with God we need to reject the sin and set our affections on Him. Normal is when we obey Him. We have to believe Him. Normal is when we trust Him. So make life normal, like it has never been before. Believe that Jesus came as God in the flesh. Believe that He died on the cross, shedding His innocent blood as the only acceptable atonement for our sin. Believe that God has raised Him from the dead proving He can do the same for us. Repent from your sin and ask Him to save you from His wrath. Then things will be normal. It will be a new normal. It will be the normal He intended from the beginning. It is a normal that can never be taken away.