What’s Normal Anyway?

You sometimes hear people say I need to get back to my “normal” life, or “normal routine.  The longer I live in India, the longer I wonder what normal is anyway. I am not sure I really have a norm anymore. I watched a lady sit on the edge of a fast speed freeway today hacking away at some grass with a knife. I guess this was her job. I am sure there was a reason she was doing it. But it’s something that will never be normal to me.  I walked to my taxi, headed out for work this morning as a beggar asked me for money.  This is his normal “job”. It’s his norm, but not mine. My neighbor cried to me for over an hour last night explaining how her dad beats her and calls her dirty names.  Her auntie explained how this is the Indian way.  It may be their norm, but it’s not mine.  I sat contemplating these things and more for over an hour today. I thought about what normal means to me, and what normal used to mean to me back in America.  What was normal to me isn’t normal anymore. What’s normal to me now wouldn’t be normal to family and friends back in America.  And yet there are some things here that I will just never get used to and they will never become normal to me. I thought about a friend who recently lost 2 close family members. He is trying to get back to his “norm”, but what is that anyway. His old norm will never be normal again. It’s not possible.  I am thankful that norms aren’t something that can’t change. I am thankful for the resilience and ability to change that God gives us. I am thankful for a larger worldview than I had a few short years ago. I am thankful for a God that loves me and those around me, no matter what their norm is. I am thankful God understands each person and can love them how they need to be loved in the midst of their hardship and suffering and joys and successes.  I am thankful for a God that knows all and perfectly loves all in the midst of their norms.

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