OK, I know that I said I would continue the story from the last post. I also said I would do it a week ago! I am sorry for not doing what I said I would do. It has been a tough week or so. My daughter has been in and out of the hospital for the last week and a half for headaches and my son broke his foot, at school, Thursday a week ago.  Thank God that they both seem to be on the mend and life is getting back to normal. Actually what is normal? Aren’t bumps, bruises, struggles and lows part of the real normal? When you get married and you recite your vows doesn’t it usually say something about for better or for worse? Who wants to believe that “worse” is going to be part of their normal? No one, but the truth is that we will have “worse” in our lives. For me, hard headed as I am, I learn quicker when I am struggling than when things are good.

My daughter has been struggling with headaches since the end of September. She was playing with the normal after-church crowd at the playground and hit her head when she fell off of the tire swing. She never told us that she hit her head; just that she was tired and wanted to go home. A week went by and she was complaining of headaches and sleeping every hour that she wasn’t in school. Finally after a week we took her to a couple different doctors’ offices and figured out she had a concussion. The routine was to be rest, no school and no exercise. Those of you that know her know deep down that none of those will be easy for her. She missed an entire 9 weeks of school. She is an Honors student and she takes her future and her personal goals very seriously. She was tired of resting. She was tired of not running. She wanted to get back to normal.

After Christmas she was doing much better. Almost all of her school work was caught up and she was having less severe headaches. January was a decent month for her. She went to school most days, she had 2 tutors helping her and she was handling things well. One day she decided that she was now fine. Her thoughts were that if normal people can be back to normal by now then she should be way ahead of them! She told her trainer that she didn’t have a headache and decided to do a mile and a half on the stair stepper. Let’s just say it went downhill from there! She might have gone to school 8 out of the 20 school days in the month of February. Her headaches were now a 7 or 8 on the pain scale, constantly. Well after 2 ER trips and 4 days in the hospital, she is now doing much better. She had aggravated and inflamed her brain and she wasn’t letting it heal. Stress over grades, anxiety over wanting to run and worry about when her life was going to get back to normal were all causing pain and issues keeping her from her normal life! She learned the effects of stress, anxiety and over doing it have on your body.

Sometimes we push so hard for our vision of normal that we cause issues physically, financially, relationally and spiritually. Our perspective of normal is skewed by our environment, our dreams and our perception of what other people tell us is normal. It is great to have dreams, goals and ambitions but we must also learn to view periods of “worse” as part of our normal. Maybe we won’t get ourselves all worked up over bumps in the road. If we are living like God intended us, then we have supportive family and friends to help us along the way.  Thanks to our friends and family for the help and prayers over the last few months! Normal comes with bumps and bruises. We have to give God thanks and be content through those times.  Remember that no matter how low we get, Jesus gave us hope through His greatest struggle!