Establishing a new normal.

Today is Tuesday, February 1, 2011.  The first Tuesday of the month.

For awhile now - so long I can count in years - this evening has always been an evening I look forward to.  A time of building relationship, a time of giving and receiving, a time of sipping wine with the ladies - a time of taking off the Mom hat and putting nothing on in its place - a moment to myself with no expectations.

Considering that today is the first Tuesday of the month and I'm here in my home, husband is out of town and I'm sipping a glass of red wine on my own, I'm feeling disheartened and having to piece together all the emotions running through my body.  I'm having to establish a new normal.

Establishing a new normal is something that my husband's Aunt coined years ago and I cannot quite remember the reason she used the term in the first place but it has weighed on me heavily recently and I've used it often.  The unexpected loss of a friendship, the unpredictability of where we're to move next, going month to month on rent, not going to the same school next year, my husband traveling and finding more projects to take on...  There is no better way to describe the life whirling around me at the moment.

Establishing a new normal.

As I sit in my living room, listen to the buzz of the xBox, and consider where God has me - I think of the 'plumb line' and have this vision in my head that as things sway this way and that, I have this vertical weighted string to hold onto and choose to abide in.  He is my plumb line and all that I do, though others may judge my steps, must only be weighed against that which is righteous or unrighteous...

Isaiah 28:17  'I will make justice the measuring line and righteous the plumb line; hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water will overflow your hiding place.'

When all that I know is gone, I hope that I have exercised holding tightly to the things that are eternal... those things that look foolish to the world but are concerned with what is right and obedient.  This evening I hold tight and swing from the end of the plumb line.  I close my eyes and ask God to reveal Himself once again...

Establishing a new normal isn't easy - but boy is it freeing.  It is exhilarating to uncover the next step that God has already created for me...

Ephesians 2:10, 'For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.'

... in the morning I will wake with a renewed sense of excitement over what He has called me to do.  I will continue to hold to the plumb line - by the grace of God - and joyfully open my eyes to a sense of purpose for what the day holds.

I will establish a new normal - a new ordinary.  But I will hold tight to that which is extraordinary.