I stood in front of the oven peeling bacon out of the package and laying out strips on the cookie sheet. My older kids had just jumped on the school bus, and the youngest slept upstairs. After sliding the sheet into the oven, I sat at the kitchen table and opened emails. Just a normal day.
I used to despise normal days. They seemed as colorful as mud. I wanted to do something impactful — not write emails, wash laundry, cook bacon.
After clearing my inbox, I grabbed my phone off the counter and opened Facebook. My feed started with a picture of a friend’s child in the hospital — with leukemia. I scrolled down. An image of a friend’s Honda totaled (but thank God she walked away). I kept scrolling. A picture of a smoothie my friend drank for lunch.
God, thank you for this normal day.
Normal days are a gift — days when healthy kids eat Cheerios before heading out the door, when adults have jobs to drive to, and laundry stains remind us of the chocolate ice cream on Friday night. God created our days from the beginning to be gifted with the rhythms of normal. The sun rises and sets. The body wakes and sleeps.
When God formed Adam and Eve from the dust of the earth, He placed them in the Garden to steward creation. Talk about normal as mud. But when sin entered the world, so also did death, disease, kids with childhood cancer, and husbands who leave.
The oven timer dinged, and I pulled out my crispy bacon, placed a few pieces on a plate, grabbed my coffee, and sat at the kitchen table. In the light of all the chaos in the world, normal moments now seem holy.
My mind wandered to Jesus. What did His normal life look like as Savior of the world? For thirty years — much like that of anyone else in the ancient Near East, I supposed. I imagined Him as a boy running down the path straight through town, playing tag with neighborhood friends. I envisioned Him washing His hands before Mary served fig stew. Maybe as an adult, He spent His afternoons carving wood — shaving by shaving — as a master carpenter, following Joseph’s trade. If normal life was sacred enough for Jesus, maybe it is for us as well.
His miracles restored people to normalcy. When Jesus healed a little girl, she ate (Mark 5:41-43). Jesus didn’t tell her to leave everything and live an “extraordinary” life. Or how about Peter’s mother who lay ill? Jesus healed her, and she immediately returned to normal housework, serving those in her home (Luke 4:38-39). When Lazarus rose from the dead by Jesus’ words, he testified to the miracle, yes, but he also returned to his life — whatever work he performed before the healing.
If Jesus used His miraculous powers to heal the lame, dead, and sick — only for them to return to regular rhythms of life — shouldn’t we rethink the gift of a normal day? Not every day will include heal-the-blind moments. Goodness, Moses watched sheep for forty years in the desert before ever seeing a burning bush only to return to the desert for another forty years helping fickle people get along and obey God.
What does your normal day look like? Maybe normal for you (like me) right now is raising kids. But maybe you care for an aging parent, work long hours at the office launching a new product, or clean houses.
Sometimes God leads us in seasons that are extraordinary, exciting, new. But most of the time, God leads us through “normal.” Get up. Go to work. Come home. Go to sleep. Repeat.
Some seasons of normal hurt — like the months I visited my dad during my lunch break as I watched him weaken from brain cancer. The day he died was one of the worst non-normal days of my life.
And those days of extraordinary bliss? Yes. They are beautiful. Marrying my best friend in the presence of three hundred of our favorite people on a warm Southern California night, then taking off for seven days in Maui? Amazing. But then after the honeymoon? We went back to our day jobs — the gift of normal.
I finished my cup of coffee and bacon, closed my computer, and walked upstairs to my daughter’s room. She greeted me with, “Mama, it’s you.” A normal greeting from a normal little girl on a normal Wednesday. And the rest of the day was normal, too.
[bctt tweet=”If Jesus used his miraculous powers to heal the lame, dead, and sick—only for them to return to regular rhythms of life—shouldn’t we rethink the gift of a normal day? -@Seana_S_Scott:” username=”incourage”]
Leave a Comment
JollyNotes.com says
Thanks for these reminders, Seana!
I am very sorry about your Dad.
Yes, it is so easy to take normalcy for granted. Yes, I would love to do great things for God, but more than anything right now, I am praying for everything to be normal. peaceful. healthy. I want to enjoy my family to the fullest, get my day to day work done and still get plenty of rest, and I want to keep on growing in Christ in every way. I want to have an impact on whoever God allows and desires I have an impact on… and I pray that I am always receptive to His leading for my life. But I don’t want to drive myself crazy doing what God has not called me to do. Oh, I am definitely praying for, and very grateful for normal.
Thanks again for sharing:) Praying for many many beautifully normal days for you and your family!
Blessings,
Bomi 🙂
Seana says
Bomi,
Thank you for your thoughts. I love what you said, “I don’t want to drive myself crazy doing what God has not called me to do.”
You are so right! With social media it is so easy for us to grab other’s priorities and miss our own. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and your compassion with the loss of my father.
Have a wonderful normal day :-)!
I don’t want to drive myself crazy doing what God has not called me to do. says
Hi again Seana – Thank you so much :)! By the way, I just wrote a post titled I don’t want to drive myself crazy doing what God has not called me to do. 🙂 🙂 🙂 I included a link to your website as well as to this post on Incourage. I hope to send it out as a bonus post to email subscribers tomorrow! 🙂
Thanks again for the inspiration! I pray everything we do always brings glory to God!
Have a beautiful day Seana!
Blessings,
Bomi 🙂
Lesli says
Love! Enjoy the normal and make the most of those days! ❤️
Jeni Smith says
This is one of the best devotions I have ever read. Thank you for sharing your heart. It was a blessing to mine. God has been showing me so many things to be grateful for in the mundane task of my life and this just confirmed His leading!
Seana says
Jeni, so thankful it encouraged you. Our lives are diverse, but each is a gift! So glad this helps you embrace yours.
Dawn Ferguson-Little says
We have alot to be thanful for. We sometimes are not thankful enough. I have to amitt that I myself am guilty of that. I know friends of mind who have a Cousin as young 6 in Hospital with Cancer. You here of especially on the news kids as yongs as 11 taking their own lives. It very sad.. Familys breaking their hearts for all theses reasons. Plus lots more. So we are to be thankfull we are saved. Know Jesus as our saviour. That God woke us up to enjoy another beautiful day in his beautiful world. That it is a Gift he gave us of Normal day. Take five minutes out of it and pray to God and thank him you are well if well. Your not in Hospital. Also pray for the world to see of it’s need of a Saviour. Especially thoes not saved and thoes with problems. As the saying goes cast your burden on the Lord for he cares for You. So true. Jesus is the same Jesus we read about in the Bible. JESUS IS THE SAME YESTERDAY TODAY AND FOREVER. Love Dawn Ferguson-Little xxx
Seana Scott says
Dawn, thanks for sharing your thoughts. There is always so much brokenness in this world, but also so much hope! That’s what makes normal days such a gift. I hope your day is as normal as can be. 🙂
Love, Seana
Dawn Ferguson-Little says
Sena one of the songs that suits your reading today. By a brilliant Christian song writter. Matt Redman. It is called. Everyone Needs Conpassion. You get it on youtube one brilliant song. Worth listing too. Love Dawn Ferguson-Little Enniskillen Co.Fermanagh N. Ireland xxxxx ps. One Excellent brilliant reading.
Seana says
Yes. I love that song by Matt Redman :-). Thanks for this reminder. Music is a powerful tool of minsitry. Hope your day is going well! -Seana
Beth Williams says
Seana,
This post brought two songs to mind. First “I Get to” by Jeff & Sherri Easter. It starts out saying I had to go to church now I get to. I had to help dad & say I love you now I get to. It shows a shift in perspective on everyday living. (Sherri Easter was going through cancer) We should be thankful for normal days with chores & such. The second song is Steven C. Chapman’s “Do Everything. It speaks of doing mundane tasks over & over. You question if it matters to God. “It matters as long as you do everything you do to the glory of God.” Normal day normal chores done to glorify God. We need to embrace typical days. There will be ordinary days that are hard. Like visiting aging parents & caring for them. Dealing with job loss, car accident, heath issues to name a few. The Lord Jesus Christ has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Since He has blessed us we should be a blessing by welcome run of the mill days with open arms.
Blessings 🙂
Seana says
Beth, It is so sweet that those special songs came to your mind. Thank you for sharing. I agree. Life has challenging seasons and the mundane remind us of hope.
Have a great—normal—day 🙂
Love, Seana
LoriAnn says
There are no days that are normal,we just look to God and say I can do this. But only by the grace of god I can have a normal day.
Seana says
LoriAnn, indeed. Only by the grace of God. Thanks for reminding us that everything good is because of his grace.
Love, Seana
Gail H says
I so needed to hear this today. Thank you so much for this encouragement. Although I’m still longing for a vacation getaway, I’m thankful for this quiet normal day.
Blessings.
Seana says
Gail, your comment made me laugh. I live in Pittsburgh, where gloomy January prompts me to day dream about winning a trip to the Bahamas. Ha ha. But, alas, we are gifted with normalcy today (as I wait for kindergarten pick-up as I type this). Whatever your normal is today, may you see the glory of God in it.
Love, Seana
Pearl Allard says
Seana, thank you so much for your message. Thank you for your insights that normal is a gift. After struggling with chronic illness, normal is a welcome relief and very much a gift, and yet it’s still easy to forget! The mundane and interruptions in our day really are divine appointments for fuller joy – in a quiet kind of way. Thanks for helping me remember. May you have a joy-filled, normal day! 🙂
Seana says
Pearl,
I am so sorry that you have struggled with chronic illness. I like your additional thoughts that even the interruptions are part of the joy. Thank you for reminding me of that!
Love, Seana
Dawn Ferguson-Little says
Sena one of the songs that suits your reading today. By a brilliant Christian song writter. Matt Redman. It is called. Everyone Needs Conpassion. You get it on youtube one brilliant song. Worth listing too. Love Dawn Ferguson-Little Enniskillen Co.Fermanagh N. Ireland xxxxx ps. One Excellent brilliant reading.
Becky Keife says
Seana! I love everything about this! Your storytelling is beautiful and you so poignantly remind us of the gift of normal while helping me see it from a Scriptural perspective I had never considered. Thank you for sharing your heart and normal day with us. It’s a joy to host your words at (in)courage! xx
Seana Scott says
Thanks, Becky! I appreciate your words of encouragement. Especially coming from a biblically grounded story-teller and encourager of women such as yourself :-). Now, cheers to another normal day! Even if it includes my child melting down over math homework land me sliding into the bathroom to gather my sanity with a pop-up prayer. lol. -Seana
Robin says
Oh how I long for the gift of a normal day. We have 3 aging parents between us with memory loss…two with dementia and one with Alzheimer’s. This season of “normal” (or non-normal) is challenging and hard, but we cling to God’s strength to help us through it. Sometimes we’ll get away for a few hours to do something normal…maybe a ride over to the coast to walk on the beach and have lunch at a favorite spot or spend the afternoon rambling around in some of our favorite antique or thrift stores. Have a blessed day!
Seana says
Robin, I can only imagine. Those seasons of life can feel so incredibly hard. May the Lord’s presence remind you of His love and truth today—in those moments you can’t cling to them yourself. May you see His hand laced with yours and know He is with you and in you. May the WORD that has been hidden in your heart spring forth buds of fragrance at the right moments. And in all things, may God be glorified as you lean on Him. Blessings to you, Seana
Kathy Burr says
What beautifully communicated truth! Going to live through my normal day with a deeper appreciation! God has this!
Thank you!!
Seana Scott says
Kathy, thanks for your comment. We sure miss being with you guys at Christ Chapel! Ministry life can sometimes feel repetitive to be sure. May the normal rhythm of your day show you His love in unexpected ways! Love, Seana
Bevy @ Treasured Up and Pondered says
Cherish the plain and ordinary of today! It’s a quote shared by a friend, to me, years ago…
and, written in chalk on a board in my kitchen, as I need the reminder – every day!!
Seana says
Love this. What a great reminder to have in your kitchen…the room where normal, ordinary things happen all the time :-).