because I don't want things to go back to normal
We live in a quiet place with a quaint little downtown. The Square, as it is lovingly known as, is host to some cute boutiques, a music store that has been around forever and is where our oldest takes drum lessons, a few restaurants, a coffee shop, and sure, there's the one store solely dedicated to memorabilia for the vampire shows that have been filmed here, but even if I tend to roll my eyes a bit when passing it, I'm still thankful for the tourism dollars it brings in to make a lot of the other places possible.
Another "been here forever place" is a barber shop that sits on the corner, and it's a place I found myself sitting outside just a couple weeks ago. Due to the current rules and regulations I now get to sit outside in the sun and peace while I send my two non-shaggy haired sons in to learn a little bit of independence and the art of confidently asking for what they want in a hair-do, both of which took me longer to learn than I'd care to admit. Though, I have already admitted that I'm not one to lead a charge, that I prefer the one-on-one conversations, what I haven't admitted is that I don't tend to seek out those hard conversations either, those that require me to stand firm in my beliefs against another's. Yet, sitting outside that corner shop is where a conversation happened.
The opening my ears to listen to another's struggles are easy, the sharing of encouragement, the giving of advice, or a different angle from which to look, the pointing to the Hope we have in Christ, all super easy. Listening to another share something I think is not just wrong but harmful and actually responding to it instead of ignoring it, that's not easy, but that is what needs to be done, what we are being charged to do by our brothers and sisters in Christ that are people of color. As Martin Luther King, Jr. so wisely said, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." So instead of silence kept, there must be words given, in love, or course.
The urge to stare at my phone when I'm around people I do not know is a strong one, it's an easy shield to maintain, but God bless that Spirit within me that constantly convicts me of the amount of times I have taken the easy way out and closed myself off from learning from the people around me. I don't remember her name, I don't remember if she even told me, but I will never forget our conversation. It started innocently enough with the typical questions about school and what it's going to look like this coming school year. Shortly after came a despondent sigh about the hard times we are going through to which I responded with a question, "what was the hardest time you have ever been through before this?" I wasn't expecting the answer she gave about going through leukemia, but my heart softened as she shared about her struggle with fighting the disease, being in a coma for over a week and then waking up to her body having taken a turn for the better for the first time in years to the point now where she has been in remission for almost a decade. As I began commenting on the healing God had given and what a testimony that was the conversation quickly went the direction I was secretly hoping it wouldn't, but mentally and spiritually preparing myself that it would.
As she began to share about riots and statues and comments from certain government leaders, I could tell our thoughts on the entire situation did not follow the same line and while I did my best to lovingly share the thoughts, struggles, frustrations, and longings from those which were fighting on the side opposite her, those who so desperately and justifyingly need to see their voices being heard she continued with one telling statement, "I just want things to get back to normal."
How many times have I uttered those same words in situations much less desperate than the ones at the top of of the list currently. Holiday seasons that burn you out, weeks of being run down by a cold that won't go away, one mere day where everything seems to be going wrong.
How many times have I uttered those same words in situations of great desperation. Chest deep in emotion from the suffering that has ensued just begging for a period of normalcy where the breath in your lungs feels steady instead of the ragged inhales and exhales that are sure signs of feeling frantic.
But, if I have learned anything in my life, it is that God's desire is to take me away from my desire for normal, my desire for predictable, my desire to have everything happen as expected, my desire to just check all parts of life off the list in order to move on to the next thing.
Normal doesn't challenge me. Normal doesn't change me. Normal doesn't excel me. Normal won't take our hearts, and our country, and the people in it and change them, or challenge them, or excel them. Normal doesn't make any of us closer to the people God desires us to be, more like His Son. All normal will do is stuff us down, hide us in false security, and keep us in the same lost place we were before.
They'll tell you everything was beautiful and pureBut there was poison in the well from years beforeAnd now I'm cleaning up this wreckage on the shoreAnd I don't want to fight with you no more
If you know my family at all, you know that Andrew Peterson is a favorite around here, music, books, performances, whatever, his words speak truth and emotion in a beautiful way. These lyrics from his song "I Want to Say I'm Sorry", are no different.
I know this woman's desire to have everything go back to normal, whatever her normal is, but I know even more, the grace of God that comes in the absence of normal, the mercy shown when we submit to the unknown of everything He already knows, and I know the glories revealed at the end of the suffering.
Look one way in the world and to our eyes, there may seem to be a long way to go. But, look a little harder, in a slightly different directions, and with our eyes, we can see how we are not where we once were. Conversations are being had, eyes are being opened, hearts are being softened, voices are coming out of shadows ready to stand in truth and love for their brother. Our normal keeps changing, and praise God for it, because it is Him who is creating newness in us. Constantly putting to death what was there before to reveal what is taking its place. And as this cycle continues until the day of Christ Jesus, I will continue to pray for you to escape the place you have put yourself in, to embrace the newness that God continually works, because I don't want things to go back to normal. Pray for me.