In Which I Strive For Normal

Normal is a setting on your dryer. Right?

 Normal for me is not your normal.

 I strive for my ideal of normal

 because I think it means calm and predictability.

 And don't forget those good words

 like stability, balance, and umm, NORMAL.

In talking with a friend recently, it seemed that at the bottom of  our gaps and empty emotions, as women, we just really want to know that we are OK.

 Not alone and unusual in our flaws.

 We just don't want to be the weird one, raising damaged kids and driving a good man

 mad with our ups and downs.

 So, we strive for normal, acceptable, and proper.

And then, I come home and read my Bible and take my dose of Ozzy Chambers for the day, and realize,

 NO! I am not normal and do not want to settle for normal.

 I need the struggle of learning what faith is.

 I need to know if I really do believe all the normal I have been taught through life's junk.

 I need my own stripe of faith.

 I need to taste faith for myself, roll it around my soul till I get all the flavors right.

 I don't want a watered down version based off another's experience.

 I want to know for myself that Jesus Christ is Lord of my life. 

I want others to see a genuine faith that comes through the struggle of a metamorphosis;

 not the bland, acceptable, and normal way of sweetly accepting whatever comes my way

 or because of my goodness and how decently I was brought up. 

I take a good hard look at my faith

and realize it is too strong to deny.

I have seen it at work, 

evidence before my very eyes.

The deep knowing in my heart,

after watching my own private miracles happen.

It has performed too much for me to deny its grip.

And it's not normal. 

It's personal, patented for a soul.

Faith struggles and fights to become the real thing.

It's God at work in my life, abnormal, confusing, and tumultuous.