Goodbye Cornfields…..Hello Carolinas. Goodbye hamster wheel….hello normalcy. Only problem is that, after all of these years of disquiet, I’m struggling with grasping “normal” again. I believe that all-things-considered, it’s “normal” for me to not remember normal, but I’m impatient. I don’t want to wait the year, or however long it will take, to get to where I trust that life is just “normal”. Many years I’ve spent praying for that boring, peaceful, uneventful life. Now that I (presumably) have it….I don’t know how to — feel– it. But….
A funny thing happened on the way to normal….
I made peace with little-old-me. I’m learning to try to see myself through the eyes of God rather than the cruel eyes of man. I’m learning that there is grace enough for the road ahead. I’m learning to lean into God when the path is unclear. I’m learning that He enough for my tomorrows.
So, with my cornfield-house sold, my Carolina-house bought, my family out of the midwest, and back in the south – life is good – in a normal kind of a way. (No offense to my cornfield-dwelling friends; they are pretty cornfields – they just couldn’t satisfy this homesick southerner.)
I have to trust that God’s timing is — well, Right on Time; that He took His sweet time getting us to this point in life for a reason. How thankful I am that He chose the unbeaten path, the one less traveled, to bring us to our “normal”. Even though I’ve forgotten how to be normal – I kind of think that that’s apt anyway because this normal is different from my past normal.
I have these big boys who need me in different ways than the little boys did. I have this heart that wants to know and be known in ways that I didn’t have the time/energy for when things were so chaotic. I have a wide open future full of possibilities — and yet, I don’t know how to embrace the “normal”. Well, “don’t know how to” is not really accurate, I guess I just don’t trust it. Not yet anyway. Once I learn to trust that this “normal” isn’t fleeting, that it’s here to stay, then I think that the embracing part will come naturally. And, as we’ve already established, I’m impatient for it.
Who knew that being settled would feel so foreign. But, to say that I’m grateful for where I am – for such a time as this – that would sound so trite and insufficient. I know that the God who brought me here is able to quiet my heart, and allow me the grace and patience to grow into my normal little life. I’m thankful for the normal, even though I struggle to connect with it.
God knew that this day was coming years before I did. He heard every prayer, He held every tear. I would have cut out the middle parts and just come here many years ago, but thankfully, God knows better. He knew how much I’d miss out on – on the way to normal.
As always, He was right on time. 
(Originally written November 2010)
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