New Normal

In the midsts of our pain and all the changes that come without having Tim here, I've held on to the hope that we'd get through this and find our new normal. And I suppose, in some ways we will, but I am also coming to understand that a new normal may be a long time in coming, and it will not remain.

It is a long time coming because the waves of grief catch me off guard. Just when I think I'm starting to come to some balance, a wave pushes me over and leaves me stumbling for a few days.

That new normal is a long way off because this is a season of change, and change is inevitable. Trying to hold onto my normal is like trying to hold an ocean in my hands. It can not be done. I am better off letting it go, and simply riding the waves.

Just in the past year, we've had major life adjustments from Tim's illness. In the past weeks, we've attempted to adjust after losing Tim while adjusting to me being home again, the girls homeschooling, and the boys headed off to school by themselves. Not to mention the farm transition we were in the middle of when this all happened. The changes aren't going to stop any time soon.

Graduation plans and order forms are here. Kellen is practically buried in the college recruitment mailings. He is neck deep in college scholarship and early decision applications.  In less than a year, he will likely be sitting in some classroom in some prestigious university on the East Coast.  And we will be here, and Nolan will likely be coming back home for school, and if we've found a new normal by then, it will all have slipped through our fingers and we will start again.

Looking ahead, I can only see more and more of those changes coming as the kids grow up (too quickly) and I set aside the plans Tim and I had for those years, to make new ones. This life is fleeting and ever changing. I can't change that. I'm better off not trying to fight that, or to trying to hold on tightly to things that will not last. Instead I look to the only unchangeable thing, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" Hebrews 13:8.