Embrace the Life God Wrote for You

All I wanted was a "normal" life.

When I was little, I often thought, “I wish my family was normal.”

When I got married, I’d think, “If my husband didn’t work odd hours, we could actually make plans!”

Once we had kids, I’d say, “Once my house is clean / painted / picked up / presentable, I will invite people over.”

These are the lines that have bounced around my head in my constant quest to be normal, accepted, and loved. It’s human nature to want to fit in, to do the right thing, to not stick out of the crowd. As a person who came to Christ as an adult, I have felt this especially in the church.

My pedigree looks different. My dad was a rock ‘n roll DJ, and in the quiet watches of the night, we didn’t read Scripture. We listened to Led Zeppelin and AC/DC, talking philosophy while he smoked cigarettes and drank another can of Natural Light.

My role as a wife has always looked different than the typical person. My husband is a landscape photographer, which means our life together has contained a lot of travel and adventure. This makes for good stories and amazing memories, but also unpredictable schedules and weekends away. That’s hard to explain to people who like to make plans—or people at church, when you’ve missed three weeks in a row.

I spent the first thirteen years of motherhood hovering somewhere between being a working mom and a stay-at-home mom. I homeschooled my children but also worked at our small business. This was different than many of my other homeschooling friends, who filled their downtime with fun activities my schedule rarely allowed. How could I be a good, Christian mom, if I wasn’t checking those activities off my list, too?

I have relatives who choose not to interact to me and others in the family, and it’s been this way for years. On holidays, when people get together with family, I find myself wishing that was true of mine.

I’ve sat with these truths in a variety of ways: disappointment, frustration, anger, resignation, questioning God, questioning myself. But as I continue to walk out the facts of my life with God, He is revealing interesting things to me.

My dad had a difficult and oftentimes selfish personality, but he also was charismatic and enormously creative. He taught me to appreciate music, light, and the way lightning flashes across the sky as the cool wind signals an oncoming storm. His command over the English language was exquisite and precise. My love for words comes from him.

All those times I wished I could stay home for the weekend instead of packing up our family for another trip to the mountains, God was doing something different with my husband and I. He was giving us a love for His Creation and helping us see it through His eyes—so we could, in turn, share that story—God’s story—with others.

And while I wish I had time to knit an afghan or browse the aisles of Hobby Lobby like a typical “kept woman,” the truth is I don’t have much patience for crafts or cooking. I like them for a little while, but then I get bored and want to write a story, create a website, or build something beyond myself. So, those years I spent coveting what the other homeschooling moms got to do turned out to be wasted time and thought.

My relationship with my estranged family members has also taught me difficult truths. So much of the foundation of my life was built upon them and their ideas. Without their voices, I’ve had room to hear my own—and God’s. I needed that space to grow in my faith.

On a recent drive, I found myself praying about things like this, and I heard God tell me, “Do you recognize all of this is a form of coveting? Do you trust I’ve written your life the way I have for a reason?”

It made me pause—because all the time I’d been wishing for godly, good things in my life, I’d been rejecting the very things God wrote into it to make me who I am. It led me to recognize some new, life-giving principles that lead to life:

Instead of wishing for other circumstances, talk to God about them, and then wait for His perspective and His heart on the matter.

Determine to help Him write your story—fully and completely—instead of greeting each sentence and plot twist with skepticism and resistance.

When you find yourself demanding He create a better or easier setting or circumstance, choose to accept where He’s placed you. Ask Him for His peace and the next step forward.

Instead of pursuing a normal, steady life, begin to ask for an anointed life—and for His Spirit to guide you as you pursue God, His plans, and His peace.

Romans 9:20-21 (NIV®): But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?