I am a singer, songwriter, wife, mother, Jesus follower. I send out a 2-minute read every Tuesday about Jesus and life in God.
The Feast of Normalcy
|
Dear Friends, I want to share a few words I’ve been singing this week. Below that, a few thoughts. You are the feast in the morning Sometimes in our zeal we develop a dissatisfaction with “normal” in our lives. We pass this discontent off as desire for greatness in God, deep things of Him, there must be more! Sometimes we mistake stress as proof of walking the narrow way of Christ, and we squint into the distance to find Him, missing what’s right under our noses. I know. I’ve done it. But the Holy Spirit has this way of calming the crashing seas of the heart, bringing the noise to a decrescendo. He puts a hand on our frantic hearts and hushes our well meaning cries to be heard and to find Him. We learn that He does want to be found: right here. Many things will happen in my home this summer. Trips to the zoo, basketball, walks with the family, cleaning the house, writing, singing the Bible, dancing, kicking the boys outside and locking the door behind them (that one’s for the boy moms), church touring… And through every last bit of it my aim is to sustain what He has begun in me these last months—a heart wide open to God, right here. A friend of mine recently called this “the feast of normalcy”. I love that. It’s a feast spread before us every moment by the Good Shepherd Himself. It’s where we trade urgent, urgent, urgent for holy, holy, holy. It’s highly spiritual as much as it is deeply tangible. We can breathe again. He tends to us here, present with us. We feast on the life He puts before us: the hundred small ways He shows us something of Himself, the many opportunities to love Him back. Not often grandiose, not meant to be shouted from the street corners. Hardly noticed except by Him. Every moment, every task, every relationship, everything ordinary is made sacred by His presence right here. What a feast. –Anna P.S. Some of you are living in war-torn areas right now, others of you are walking through grief… perhaps trips to the zoo or any talk of “normal” feels foreign. What does “the feast of normalcy” look like when life is turning sideways? I got thoughts. Next week. |
Anna Blanc
I am a singer, songwriter, wife, mother, Jesus follower. I send out a 2-minute read every Tuesday about Jesus and life in God.
Hi Friends, For years, I’ve taken the weeks leading up to Christmas to stare into the passages of Scripture about Christ coming as a baby. The birth of Christ is a storyline that’s rich in wonder. We could spend all 365 days of the year focusing on it and not exhaust all there is to see. Last year, I did something different. I wrote an Advent email series specifically for those overcoming spiritual anxiety. Spiritual anxiety? What the heck is that? This is a phrase I’ve been using to describe...
Hi Friends, What defines a life well lived? When you’re young, it’s easy to imagine your life stretching out in front of you like a line on graph paper. It ascends predictably, ending in the upper right hand corner. Success! But life is unpredictable. In some moments, it is chaos. I’ve been reading through the life of Moses in scripture these days. There is no sky-rocketing line of success on the graph of his life. In fact, the highs of miraculous wonders and lows of sin and failure spike and...
Hi Friends, When we were on our “church tour” about a year and a half ago, something stood out to us. With all the different expressions and traditions that have been handed down through different Christian denominations, there are a few practices they hold in common. One of those practices is communion. In some churches you kneel. In others you’re handed the bread. In some places you pass bits of crackers down the aisle. Some churches do it weekly, others less often, but I have yet to see a...