Back to Normal......

The holidays are over.  Tomorrow the Christmas tree will come down and be boxed up once again for another year.  The decorations will be laid in the big tubs and taken back to storage.  The Christmas goodies all eaten and healthy food stocked up in the cabinets and refrigerator.  The scale has new batteries.  Sigh.  Finally….things can get back to normal and we can move on to the bright new beginning of 2014, right?  We get to put the past behind us and eagerly anticipate wonderful things in this new year.  The kids will go back to school.  We’ll go back to work.  Everything will go back to the way it was. 

I’ve come to the conclusion after 2013 that whoever said normal was just a setting on a dryer is correct.  Oh, I know what I used to mean when I’d say that I wanted things to get back to normal.  I wanted things to go back to the way they were – that comfortable, typical, predictable pattern of life where nothing out of the ordinary knocks the wind out of you while you find yourself flat on your back gasping for air.  No surprises.  No pain.  No change.  No chaos.  I am the one in charge of the calendar AND the to-do list.  No interruptions in my plan. 

Funny thing…God doesn’t promise a normal life, He promises an eternal one.  He doesn’t promise an easy life, He promises never to leave us and sticks with us in the difficult times.  He leads us places we’d never dare to go by our own choice because He knows we’d stick to the “normal” path and in doing so miss out on something better.  God’s plans are higher than ours.  Testimonies are built, lives are transformed, and Faith is deepened in the non-normal events of life.         

Normal.  Before they met Jesus, the twelve disciples were just a group of normal guys doing normal things.  Yet after their encounter with Jesus, they were transformed into the leaders of the Kingdom.  There was nothing normal about that.  Their entire lives were turned upside down and in a matter of speaking so was the world.  I was reminded this Christmas that the precious baby boy in the manger didn’t come to improve our lives.  That sweet baby came to transform us.  He came to transform me.  He came to transform you.  To take us off the “normal” path and lead us to heights we couldn’t dare reach on our own.  He didn’t come to stay in the manger, he came to save us on the cross!  Praise God!

So as 2014 begins I am confident things won’t be getting back to normal. Normal is just a setting on a dryer, right? 

Happy New Year!