I was overwhelmed with ordinary while I was walking this morning. I saw a gray sky devoid of any real distinguishing feature. No other color, no sun, no puffy clouds, nothing. A vast gray with just the occasional patch of a different shade. I saw the same path that I walk everyday, which now features mostly barren trees. The few leaves still clinging have turned brown. The grass has browned.
I thought about how I was going to finish my same 3-mile walk, by the same houses, in the same basic 40 minutes, and go back into my very ordinary brick house and wash the same clothes I’ve washed many times before, and pick up the same messes that I pick up daily. I was on the verge of being consumed by the gray when God spun the Rolodex that is my mind back through the busyness of the last few days and some lessons I’m working on learning.
In the last nine school days, I’ve been at one of my children’s schools five times for various activities. Then there were club meetings, practices, birthday parties and lunch with a friend. I went on the fourth grade field trip with my oldest and came home thinking I’d had too much day and not enough coffee. I don’t take any special pride in being busy but it has been an unusually busy couple of weeks.
Truthfully, it’s been overstimulating for me. Perhaps the ordinariness of today was all the more noticeable because of the last few days. Was that what God was showing me? That I’ve been too busy. Maybe. I’ve not had the time to sit and write much during this stretch. And I’m positive that’s what He wants from me at the moment – to share these things He’s showing me with you.
It’s like He paused on the busy and then pushed on to gratitude. Not being grateful for the busy but for the ordinary. We should be thankful for the ordinary. The ordinary is a gift. My mind flipped back through some of the conversations I’ve had with people during this same busy stretch. Each of us is working our way through our own struggles. Several people have asked me to pray for specific things. I think that each of those people would love some ordinary.
We don’t often notice the ordinary until we don’t have it. When it’s been stripped from us we crave it. I’ve been dreading this Christmas season because it will get in my face and scream that the ordinary I’ve known is gone for good. It will force me to find a new ordinary. We miss the ordinary when it’s gone.
The ordinary is a gift. God uses ordinary people, ordinary stuff and ordinary circumstances everyday. The Bible is packed full of examples of ordinary. God is in the ordinary.
Hebrews 13:5 says, “Let your conduct be without covetousness, and be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.'”
This serves as a reminder to me that the ordinary of my life is enough because God is in that, too. I don’t need to chase busyness. I don’t need to have extraordinary skills. I don’t need to have more of anything than anyone else. Ordinary is good. I should be content with ordinary.
It’s God that elevates the ordinary. It’s God that turns the water into wine. It’s God that heals the sick. It’s God who comforts us beyond comprehension when He has said no to the earthly healing. It’s God that turns our pain and suffering into something good. Into hope. Into the miraculous. It’s God that gives us the gift of ordinary – without the pressures and exhaustion of more.
I’m so very, very thankful today for my ordinary existence; for my common, mundane life that allows me to draw on experiences of both highs and lows. I’m thankful for the gray skies that help me appreciate the blue ones, for all of nature’s seasons, for a body that can walk, and for the laundry that means love is present in my house.
I’m thankful for a God who became ordinary for us. May we never forget to appreciate the gift of ordinary.
