No such thing as normal

Life goes on.  Right now I spend roughly 6 hours a day at the NICU and 6 hours during the day home with the kids.  Life at the NICU consists of cleaning and sterilizing constantly, remembering to put on a gown every time I go back to see her, changing diapers, taking temperature, feeding tubes, teaching Brylee how to use a bottle, learning how to feed her that bottle, watching heart monitors, paying attention for signs that she is not breathing right, and then at the end of each of my two visits with her getting to lay her down on my chest for a few minutes and feel her breath.  I am thankful for each one of those precious breaths. 

While I am gone each day my mom and mother in law take care of Adaline and Maddox until I can get back home to be with them.  Life at home is me getting up before the kids in the mornings so I can be ready to leave for the hospital at 715am and then in the afternoon at 415pm.  While I am home life consists of dogs learning how to open the gate and traipse through the neighborhood, dirty diapers, swim lessons, snacks, playing outside, cleaning up accidents and spills, baseball games and trying to keep the house from looking like wild animals took over.   

There is no such thing as normal anymore.  I was quite content with our crazy busy “normal” way of life.  I liked our routines of baseball, church, softball, bible study, friends, and family.  As far as I knew we were going to switch from a man on man to a zone defense with a 3^rd baby, but beyond that our life was going to be the same.  I was not prepared for our new normal.  There are those days in normal life as a mom that you are ready to kill everyone and everything in your house hold for one reason or another.  Your husband was supposed to call someone and didn’t, your dogs decide to tear up your child’s favorite shoes, or your kids decide to get bubbles and toilet water all over the guest bathroom.  I was given a day like this on Tuesday and the Lord gave my heart a brilliant reminder. 

We have spent the last two months of our life in turmoil for one reason or another.  Whether that was me on bed rest or Brylee’s birth and life adjusting to going back and forth between the NICU and home.  We have thanked the Lord daily for Brylee’s arrival, but that is not to say that we have not been tired and worn down, wishing at times for things to be back to the normal we knew.  Tuesday was absolute chaos at our house.  The dogs got out twice as well as making a mess all over the carpet.  Maddox’s leaky diaper got all the way through his shorts and Adaline decided to use to toilet bowl scrubber and got toilet water all over herself and her bathroom, and in the midst of all this while being sleep deprived and ready to cry I realized the Lord had given me a little bit of normal I have been missing.   He used the things that used to would have torn me down to instead lift me up.

 

We never know what the Lord will use to be a blessing in our life at any given time, but for me that day it was chaos.  I love reminders that the Lord is in control in all situations, because inevitably those reminders are never what I would have anticipated.  In tragic situations Christians so many times quote Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.”  I think the more appropriate and amazing part for our life right now is the two verses that come before. 

 

^“26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

 

The Lord reminded me this week of exactly what these say that the spirit helps me when I am weak and intercedes when I don’t know what to pray for. I have been so weak and lost from a human standpoint in all this but the Lord has given me days like Tuesday that is the most unexpected of ways have lifted me up and given me the strength for another hour and another day. He has given us prayers to pray when we didn’t have the words and encouragement through things as simple as meals from friends. Please remember to thank the Lord for your chaos. Let that chaos remind you of the simple fact that the Lord is in control when you are not. We are so thankful to have blessings that we did not orchestrate like crazy days or Adaline learning how to swim that bring our focus away from our stresses and struggles and back to a father that loves us so magnificently. More magnificently than our minds can comprehend. Thank the Lord there is no such thing as normal.