When Life Looks Quite Ordinary

At 25-years-old I’ve graduated from high school and a four-year college. Lived in a foreign country. Interviewed for jobs and accepted offers. I’ve been engaged and planned a wedding. Gotten married and went on a honeymoon.  Bought my first Christmas tree. Taken a positive pregnancy test, thrown a gender-reveal party, and sent out birth announcements. Launched a book. Went house shopping and signed mortgage papers.

A life full of responsibilities, blessings, and joys I never dreamt would have been mine.

Even so, I’ve been in a rut. A life-seems-kinda-blah rut. An I-just-want-something-different rut.

Believe me, I am aware of how utterly ridiculous this sentiment is.

I think I get a high from extraordinary experiences. I crave the hustle. Breakneck speed seems slow. I want to grind it out, grab a coffee, and do it again.

But I must remember: our lives aren’t defined by extraordinary.

By definition, extraordinary occurrences don’t happen all that often. They are outside of the realm of ordinary. The normal. The everyday. Extraordinary might highlight our lives, but it isn’t meant to be the stuff of it.

“Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands.”
(1 Thessalonians 4:11 ESV) 

Living is made up of grocery store trips and flat tires and paperwork and picnics and messes and life. I fear our generation so hungry for the “next big” we miss the “little here.”  Be faithful with your little. Ordinary is where we grow in plain, but perfectly wonderful ways. Mind you, ordinary isn’t lackluster. Let heart-work happen inch by inch, “from one degree of glory to another.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Marvel at how you can be shaped by ordinary.