Hi Friends,

Last week I shared about the Feast of Normalcy… the banquet the Lord sets before us in every moment of every ordinary day. (If you missed it, you can catch it here.)​

But what about when life turns sideways? What about when the word “normal” sounds foreign to your ears and life is war-torn (for some of you, literally)?

I believe that in difficult seasons of life, our need for the feast of normalcy actually increases. Our craving for ordinary—for patterns and expecteds—actually spikes when what we’ve known turns upside down. And that craving for normalcy: even that is from Him.

Into the very fabric of existence God wrote pattern. On the most earth-shattering of days, the sun rises in the east. Even when your heart races, “unknown” lurking behind every turn of the hour hand, the sun still marches across the sky at just the same rate, sinks in the west at just the same time.

Spring follows winter, summer follows spring—it’s like the world around us is unaware of the grief, pain, or waiting that fills the days for many. It can feel wrong, unfair even, that nature carries on when all else is coming to pieces.

But there is One who is actively turning the page every day, changing the scene every season, and He is not unaware. Could it be that even here, He sets a feast before the unsteady heart?

Perhaps He is saying, “Even when the whole world falls apart, I never change”.

There’s a feast in the normalcy happening all around us. A feast of His faithfulness. His goodness. His constancy and trustworthiness.

And just as He lifted up bread and wine on the night before His greatest suffering, lifting up ordinary food and drink always found on the table in that day, He wants us to remember Him. In our eating and drinking. In our sleeping and waking.

And yes, even in our trembling under the covers in our greatest hardships as the dark of night surrounds. Because the sun will rise even then, and it comes as a feast to remind us:

He is here.

–Anna