Normal...or something like it

After something major happens I always want to try to return to normal. I always want to feel like I did before and even behave the way I did before..maybe it's a comfort thing.  There are a few things I've learned lately about "normal".  One, which was particularly surprising, is that it's constantly changing.  The normal I knew before college could not possibly be the same normal that I experience after college.  If it were, there would have been no purpose in going to college because it would mean that nothing had changed..nothing had happened to change the way I think and feel.  I didn't learn this until a few weeks ago.  I returned to Venezuela after two weeks at home and wanted nothing more than to go back to normal.  I wanted to just get back into ministry, back into our community and back into the strength and minimal concerns I had before my father was sick.  There arose so much tension within me because no matter how hard I fought to make things the way they were before, nothing seemed to want to go back.  I found that everything was different, including myself..and the solution wasn't to try to make everything like it was before I went home.  God had given me a new normal.  A "normal" in which my faith was stronger and my joy in God was deeper.  This new normal is better.
Another thing I learned about normal is that it can become a sort of safety net that we use to protect against the vulnerability that often comes with difficulties.  I thought that if I could just return to normal my weaknesses wouldn't be as evident to everyone, although I felt very weak.  I didn't want to be the girl who was struggling to be fully engaged where she was because she just wanted to be with her family.  But  I had to learn that my weakness was okay and that in the midst of it God desires to make Himself known.  My struggles and God's goodness through them have given me empathy and compassion I did not have in my old normal.  I now think that those major life events bring change for the better and they allow us to move beyond ourselves and deeper into God.

"But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead"  2 Corinthians 1:9