God's Poem

Today, I am sitting in my dad's bedroom by the pellet stove watching snow fall on the deck, thinking about the last time I did this...It was February and Brandy and I were sitting in my parent's bedroom by the pellet stove watching snow fall on the deck. In this same chair, doing this same thing I posted 'The Big Snow' while my mom and dad were staying the night in a Holiday Inn in Baltimore so that my mom could get to Hopkins in the morning for her daily tests. That is the same Holiday Inn my dad and I took a nap in 4 months ago days before my mom died.

Maybe it's the onset of Christmas and everyone asking what it is you want, but as of late, I have been trying to determine what it is I really want. Even in my prayers, I tell God I have no idea what I want from Him. I can sense as I pray that it's something God wants me to figure out because somehow that is going to help me deal with my grief, but I have been having problems doing it. On the surface I could say what I want is more time with my mom, but as I pray I can sense there is something more to it. About 3 days ago I realized what it is...What I really want is normal back. My normal has been utterly and completely changed, and I want it back.

I figured it out as I was reading Joni Eareckson Tada's newest book 'A Place of Healing'. She quotes Mary Jane Iron's statement on normal:

"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are...Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in my pillow, or stretch myself taunt, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return."

My parents taught me how to be a person that didn't take things for granted, appreciate what you have and accept what you don't. We lived today, not waiting until tomorrow to do something or say something or go somewhere if we were able to. I appreciated my mom and I told her and showed her that I loved her, and yet I so long to tell her again. Brandy and I wrote in our eulogy that we can't say we really regret anything we didn't do with or didn't say to our mom, and yet there is an aching that we didn't do everything we could have. I realized that longing, that aching is for the normal day. My dad and I were talking on Christmas Eve about the fact that you will always ask for one more day, one more 'i love you', one more hug...it's just the nature of the beast. That asking is asking for the normal. When I scream at God that I'm angry and I don't know why, I'm angry because I don't have my normal. When I cry in my pillow and can't put a finger on why, it's because I just had a moment that should have been normal and wasn't. I have very much realized over the past few months that it's not the huge things I miss, it's the little things...it's the normal things.

It's hard to appreciate normal. Driving to work, sitting at a restaurant waiting for food, handing someone something from the fridge, watching a TV show together, checking on a recipie as you make it, going for a walk, finding out what someone did that day...that is normal...that is what I miss...that is what I long for. Do you know what I do regret? That we didn't videotape a normal day. But who thinks to videotape a normal day? You videotape a birthday, or a vacation spot, or a special event, but nobody videotapes making cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning and the random, non-important conversation that ensues. That, however it what I want. And as I write this I suddenly realize, that even if I had it, it wouldn't be enough. If I had that video, I would want a video of us sitting in the bedroom while my mom talked about the food network and Brandy and I laughed at how excited she was. And if I had that video, I would want a video of my dad coming home from work and giving my mom a kiss like he did every day....I would just want more because there are so many normal moments you can't possibly video them all. And it would seem wierd to have a video set up while you are going through your day :)

In the end, what I am coming to understand is that normal is always changing. Right now I'm getting used to a very severe kind of change in normal, the kind that makes it impossible to ever go back. I will never experience a 'normal Christmas' or 'normal drive to work' or 'normal day sitting by my parent's pellet stove' as I understand normal. I have to work out my new normal as I phrased it shortly after my mom died...I didn't know the wisdom of the words I was writing. How I figure that out is beyond me at this point, but I do think that knowing that is what I'm longing for will help me learn to let it go. God wasn't asking me to figure it out so he could wave it in my face and say 'well, too bad, you can't have it'. He was asking me to figure it out because in the figure out of what I wanted, I would start the process of figuring out the next question I'll ask Him.

Joni Eareckson Tada pointed out something very interesting about Ephesians 2:10, which says that we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. The word 'workmanship' in the original Greek is poiema, from which we get our English word 'poem'. What a beautiful way to look at yourself - as God's poem to the world. There are certainly some dark lines in my poem as of late, but if God knew in advance what he had planned for my poem to accomplish then these dark lines were supposed to be here. The normal in my previous stanzas is certainly not the normal that will be in my future stanzas, but I will keep trusting that 'God knows the plans he has for me, plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me a hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)