The New Normal

My house is clean. The kiddos have fresh laundry picked out. Our mail is out of the mailbox. There are a hundred other things that I accomplished this week that would be classified as normal. I know that's a good thing, but it feels so foreign to me right now. You see, right now I'm in a room with no lights on; I know they're out but I can't convince everyone else of it. The world around me is continuing and I'm trying to tell them that's impossible, but they just won't listen. Instead, they tell me my mother has been buried for over a week now. They tell me that life is moving on and I'm being strong and that it will all be better soon. I cover my ears because I know that's not true.

I miss my mother for so many reasons. I think about how there is no one else left in the whole earth that can recall the day I was born. No one knows about my first hair cut. No one can tell me if I was three or if I was four that Christmas on the way to church, I fell down on the ice, scrapped my knee and ripped my pretty white tights. The one who knew those stories is gone. I desperately want to be seven again. I want to sit under the tree in my Nannie's front yard and hear her tell me that she loves to hear me make up little songs like Momma used to. I was in such a hurry to grow up and move on, but I wish there were a few pieces I could have back. I laugh to think that I would ever want to return. Even though it will never make sense to most of the people in my life currently, I have a bunch of unresolved scars from my childhood. I have hurts that I never quite learned how to box up. Sometimes the house that built you is full of cracks, but it's still yours.

God told us in Luke 12 that he knows the hairs numbered on our heads. Isn't that an amazing thought? That in the millions of people who pass you by, know nothing of you, there is still one who knows your heart and mind. I pray now that he searches my heart and knows my anxious thoughts like in Psalm 139 and carries me through. If you've spent much time with me, you know I've always struggled with giving it to God. I never meant to, but if you've never had much control, it's hard to throw your hands up and tell him to take it. My whole life must have been a dress rehearsal for trusting God because right now there is no question of whether or not I can. I can only put one foot in front of the other because he's carrying me. Even though my eyes are shut tight, wanting to pretend it will all go away, I can see because Christ is my light.

My new normal is anything but. It's not at all what I want or what I asked for. And I know one day it will be...that's just hard to grasp right now. Luckily, God doesn't ask us to have it all figured out. He just tells in Proverbs 3:5 to trust him with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding. For today, that's the only thing that feels normal.