Day 7... Craving Normal

It was the first time we took a family of four to church.  We only went to one service and then were headed home....  where it was safe...  or at least we felt safe....

Done, we successfully went to church as a family.  Whew.  Then we heard it, the little 3 year old voice, "Are we going to Jason's Jelly (that's what she called our usually Sunday lunch spot).  Confused, us adults just looked at each other.  Could we go?  Why couldn't we go?  Going to our "usual" place seemed too normal.  My husband and I realized that we wanted to go but no one had told us if we could go.  Why not?

I'll tell you why not, things had changed.  We had realized how uncertain the world we moved in was.  Life had been turned upside down.  We were scared.  

With one look and a nod he turned the corner.  We hadn't planned to go.  We weren't meeting anyone.  We went!

That day our family took a brave step forward and did something "normal" for the first time in a over a month.  The entire lunch was strange.  Usually we were surrounded by friends on Sundays at lunch.  That day it was just us.  Usually this was a great time of fellowship.  It was just us.  Our sweet daughter expressed the unvoiced cry that my husband and I had, we wanted to do something normal.  When we got home our world got a little sweeter.

That day I learned that God had given us this beautiful blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl too.  Her role in our family seemed to change that day.  She was going to help us learn how to be a normal family.  She would hold us accountable to live the life we had not just stay home and hide.  This sweetie has an adventurous spirit that is contagious.  We can not ignore her.  

Together my husband and I realized that we were never going to be "normal" in the world's eyes and our path had no road map but together we could redefine "normal".  We would do everything in our power to help our little family grow up to love the life we were living.  

We still sometimes "crave" a normal life but those days don't come very often.  For the most part we have been learning to live in and thrive in the journey God is leading us on.  We laugh.  We act silly.  We fuss and fight.  We get bored.  So far this not-so-normal life is pretty exciting and certainly has some amazing views.