Lately, my eyes have been opened to my new normal. We’re halfway through the race and I’m noticing more and more He things we’ve grown accustomed to :
- More stray dogs than children in the streets.
- Toilet paper in the trash can and the guilt/pleasure when you accidentally flush it.
- Frequent meetings that point out your opportunities for improvement and affirmations for your growth.
- Bottled water or parasites.
- Werk werk werk werk werk.
- More than one language circulating.
- Special appreciation for acoustic environments and harmonies.
These are my new normals.
- Stopping on your way to work to help someone load their car.
- Having real conversation with complete strangers.
- Hitchhiking to go nowhere.
- Loving everyone fiercely with abandon.
- Fights over peanut butter, toothpaste and hot sauce.
- Travel sized feeling of home.
- Absurd appreciation for fresh machine done laundry – especially dryers.
- Dreams of Chick-fil-A sauce, fresh ground coffee, drinkable tap water, hot showers and snow.
- Dropping all pretenses and pride to meet someone where they are.
What did normal even look like before this year ? What will it be by the end of next summer ?
We were asked recently to declare a theme for his new year – to commit to chasing after a piece of God’s character in 2017. This was my response :
Being loved is number one. The truth that He loves me – unconditionally with His perfect and unfailing love and has chosen me ; I belong to Him.
“If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.” John 15:19A
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you ; I have called you by name, you are Mine.” Isaiah 43:1B
This year is about love for me. Accepting I am loved and chosen – living in that rapture, that freedom – that is my new kind of normal. If I’ve learned one thing during this first half of the race, it’s that life never looks as you imagine it will. It isn’t glamorous, neat and organized – it can’t be controlled or confined, planned or perfected. But it can be joined, in full force – its power exacerbated by our enthusiasm, just like that of love’s.
That is what we are called to do – live and love and learn with abandon !
So cheers ; to a new year, a new hope and a new fervor lighting a fire under our butts to keep going, no matter what. Cheers to a year bound for the overflow.
#11n11 #praise #heisonlygood #wrexpedition
