Normal Thanks

God-

Today I thank you for the normal.

Too often I focus on the burrs of the normal and am run down by normalcy.  I have to do the dishes.  I have to clean the bathroom.  The garbage is overflowing.  My van is dirty.  The electric bill came, high again.  It's hot outside again.

My kids.  They scream and yell.  They complain and push against me.  They keep asking me for food.

My husband has to work late.  He's stressed out again.

Thank you, God, that I have these things.  May I use them as tools for you and not be pulled downward by their "call."  May I find the joy in the dishes.  Thank you for the beauty and creativity of the person who designed these dishes we eat on each day.  

Thank you for the indoor plumbing and the shiny fixtures I am blessed with.  I lived for a year with only a sink and cold water - no shower, no indoor toilet.  I had less to clean, but I choose the cleaning any day over the sponge baths and middle of the night jaunts to the outhouse. 

Thank you that, right outside my door, is a dumpster and for the driver of the truck which comes twice weekly to haul it away.  

Thank you for a vehicle large enough to carry the whole family and for the finances to pay for upkeep and gas.  It may be dirty, but that's because of a full life.  Thank you, God, for that.  

Thank you for electricity and light in the darkness.  Thank you for the AC which keeps us from melting away.  Thank you for the ways we can communicate, learn and relax through our devices and TV.  

Thank you for our condo.  It may not be very big, but it's sturdy and protective and provided by you.  It's the place where two of our children have come home from the hospital to and it's where you have us.  Here.  Thank you for our neighbors.

God, thank you for the health of those lungs in my kids.  Thank you for ease in which they breath in and out.  Thank you for the strength and capacity.  Thank you for healing Annika of pneumonia earlier this year and for clear, clear lungs.  

Thank you, God, that as these little ones complain and push against me they are doing the normal.  They are experimenting with their boundaries and exercising their little wills.  Give me the wisdom to respond well to them, to notice them, and to teach them in your ways.  Thank you for this chance, this normal - yet awesome opportunity.  

Thank you, Jesus, for the food on the table.  Thank you for abundance we live in and how easily we can run to the grocery store to pick up a missing item or two or three or four or twenty.  Thank you that they eat.  Thank you that every little part that needs to function well in their little bodies in order to get that food down, works, and works well!  Thank you that we no longer have a feeding tube or chronic vomiting in the house.  Thank you for six normal eaters.

Thank you for my health and the ability you've given me to do all of these things.  Thank you for revealing to me ways that I fall short so that I can lay them at your feet. Thank you that you are my strength - Not that you fill in the gaps when I fall short, but that I can actually lean on you all the time.  I can drive.  I can teach.  I can chastise and punish.  I can cook.  I can eat chocolate.  Thank you for my normal life and the abundance of blessing that it is.

Thank you, Father, for the provision of my husband's job.  It provides all of the material things already listed above as well as the wonderful health insurance we've so needed these past few years.  Thank you that you know James and that you have him right where he is supposed to be right now.  Thank you that, although life is sometimes stressful, he's learning and growing through it and becoming an even better husband and father because of it.  Thank you that he walks with you so faithfully.

Often, when I lean against my husband, I note the strong, steady thrumming of his heart.  Thank you for how much his physical heart reflects the core of his personality: hard working, unseen, steady and strong.  I listen to the beat, and am in awe that such a thing continues on in us for all of our days.  And I thank you, I thank you, for the five normal beating hearts in our family and I ache for the one which is not.  But I am ever so much more thankful for the ones that work because of the one which doesn't. 

Thank you, Father, for the doctors who have become a part of our family's normal.  Thank you for the skill you have given them.  Thank you for the chance at feeling normal for a time, even when it's not.  Thank you for the life of our 4th child, and how we have a chance to know her because you allowed us to live now, and not a hundred years ago.

Thank you for the hope and security of future glory when all will reach beyond our terrestrial normal to a joyful, painless, glorified perfection.  The more imperfections and pain I see here, the more I yearn for that time and feel so, so blessed to know it is coming.

Our sins, paid for-now.  Then-our bodies, healed.  Our tears, wiped away.  As we forever live in perfection with you in Heaven, that place you have prepared for your people.

Thank you, God.

You have been good to us.

Amen