Pictures of Egypt

I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacked
The future seems so hard
And I want to go back
But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I"ve learned
And those roads closed off to me
While my back was turned
~*Sara Groves*~

Last night at church, we as a praise team attempted to learn this song. Didn't work out-mainly because it was not in the right key. Anyway, I found myself coming back to the lyrics of the song today, mainly the chorus. It seems that at every major transition in my life since graduating high school, I'm always looking behind me. One thing that obviously needed to be re-thought when I got to college was what my idea of "normal" was. In all honesty, "normal" became muddy to me when Matt left for college. I felt like a piece of our family was missing. So maybe my view of normal was when all four of us were under the same roof. But in college, I realized that if this was really the case, then life would never be normal again.

So then I left for college- off to Boston it was! Four years later, I moved to Kentucky. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would be living in KEntucky. So clearly, a new definition of normal needs to be made. And it all comes down to my identity being in Jesus Christ. I am a child of God- a daughter of our sovereign God. THIS is the only normal thing I know. God is faithful- never once has He EVER let me down. I need to stop looking behind me. I am not who I was 6 years ago when I graduated from high school, 2 years ago when I graduated from college, or even a year ago when God sent me through a refining fire to snap me back into the reality of where I was.

I'm growing up. For the first time in my life, I've realized that I am a strong person. I can stand on my own two feet. I can make a home for myself 900 miles from my childhood. I can challenge myself and trust that the Lord will honor that. Who I am now cannot live in the "normal" I once was so sure of.

I am so in love with the Lord- what could be more normal than that?

In His Mercy....