ode to the normal day...

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are.  
Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart.  
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so.  One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, 
your return.  - Mary Jean Iron

sometimes normal days, i mean like normal normal normal, get me a little down... i know!  crazy, yes, but i think you might know what i'm talking about... as much as i would give anything for just a normal day now and then when life is busy, often when they eventually come along, they just are so..................... normal.  yes, there are great normal days and then there are the normal, normal days where you just wish something exciting would come along... and by exciting i mean "exciting for a normal day", i.e. -  a text message, stepping out the front door, driving the car, talking to someone other than yourself... not quite exciting but in comparison to that "normal" day most definitely riveting!  so you get what i mean... i have found myself having a few of these normal days recently... and most definitely their succession has made them even harder to tolerate... but then i stop and think and wonder why these normal days are so unattractive at some moments and at other moments they are all i want... and i catch myself once again, why do i always want what i don't have... when life is normal i want it to be exciting... when life is exciting and busy i long for the normal... ugh.

i have to challenge myself on these normal days to have a correct perspective.  each day is a day that God has given to me with responsibilities that are anything but normal.  in fact they are quite supernatural and eternal and huge.  in these moments of normalcy i have to remember that i am called by God to use each day to glorify Him and His Son.  and sometimes i think that in the normal, when we are most challenged to follow through with this task, the results can be so much more obvious than in the big, exciting moments.  the most challenging thing for me is to figure out how to make this practical?  any ideas?  how do we live for God in our normal days?  how can we follow through on the tasks that He has given us as His ambassadors?  We have been made new creations, how can we do anything but respond, in the normal or the not so normal...

"...all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave US the ministry of reconciliation (do you ever wonder what in the world was He thinking, giving US this responsibility?!?); that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  Therefore, we are AMBASSADORS for Christ, God making his appeal through US..." 2 Corinthians 5:18-20a.

definitely not what i would define as normal...

so let us embrace the normal, not take it for granted, enjoy the blessings of the normal and use the normal to glorify our Lord and Savior... turning our day into anything but normal.

my place

i am not a runner.  however, as chicago moves into a colorful collage of yellows and reds, being outside is much more appealing than the stuffy bally down the road.  so yesterday morning i took off, my pink sauconys crunching through the leaves.  on went the ipod and off went all the concerns of the week.  a few minutes into my run a song by leeland came through my headphones and i was reminded of my place... and the place where i should find myself and yet by God's grace, the place where i am not. 

We who were called to be Your people
Struggling sinners and thieves
We’re lifted up from the ashes
And out came the song of the redeemed
The song of the redeemed

We have caught a revelation
That nothing can separate us from
The love we received through salvation
It fills your daughters and your sons
Your daughters and your sons

these words compelled my thoughts and i began to make a mental list of where i should still be...

in a place that is filled with sin and darkness... 

a place of hopelessness and separation... 

confusion and chaos... 

lost and alone... 

cut off, removed, weak, futile... 

unloved and with no chance... 

condemned to die... 

a place of pain.... 

dirty and completely aware of my lack of ability to ever experience freedom... 

a place where God is unknown and unknowable...

and yet, this is not the place where i find myself...

i am in a place where there is freedom and unity with my Savior...

i have been made new, i am accepted and made holy...

i am in a place full of love and unity...

a place where i find healing and am healed...

i am able to MEET WITH GOD...

not only can i meet with God, He has given me a new place in HIS FAMILY...

i am not merely an acquaintance, i am family and have been given the rights that members of a family are given...

i am fully loved and complete...

i am in a place of friendship and peace...

i am new and have been set free from the place i once found myself...

and i will never return.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. 

The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

2 Corinthians 5:17