It's Not Normal
“You just have to find your new normal.” This statement sounds like fingers on a chalkboard to me. Well meaning friends, nurses, therapists and doctors repeatedly told me this after I completed my cancer treatment. My work, my marriage, my kids and my physical body … nothing felt normal ... but I was alive. And trust me, I was (and still am) grateful for that! So when my bones scream in pain… I push through, thankful to be alive and to be able to feel the pain. When my energy crashes faster than a cheetah…. I am thankful my family picks up the slack. When I look at my body full of scars … I’m thankful for God’s healing hand. (I’m also thankful for doctors who prescribed medicine and carefully took out the failing and broken pieces and sewed me up again). But this … it’s not normal.
44 year old bones should not feel like this. A 44 year old women should not have scars where all her female parts should be. When I turned 40, I proclaimed that it would be my best decade yet. My boys were becoming more independent. I found a job I loved. I was (and still am) madly in love with my husband. But at age 42 … life happened. A cancer diagnosis ... it’s not normal.
Stage IV cancer comes with a whole host of emotions and questions. Will I see my boys graduate high school? See them get married? What if the chemo doesn’t work? Where will I die? At home? A nursing home? These questions are hard, but we discussed every - single - one of them as a family. It sucked. But I knew we had to talk about it ALL so I could have peace knowing they will never wonder how I felt. My husband had already buried both of his parents to cancer, and on February 27, 2018 he learned that statistically his 42 year old wife had 2-5 years to live. It’s not fair so … we cried … a lot. But we held strong to our faith and in the knowledge that no matter what, God Would Win! (Either I beat cancer on earth, or got to meet Jesus face to face) During chemo, my boys asked me if I died, if it would be OK for dad to get married again. I had to look them in the eye and promise that YES, it was OK, as long as she loved both of them and their dad… THAT, was not normal.
Now it’s 2020. COVID-19 is here, and the world is telling all of us to find our new normal. Finding a new normal is NOT normal. Normal is normal … and normal is predictable and safe. Normal is day to day with a few different seasons. But normal is comfortable. New Normal sneaks in like a simmering volcano. It appears to be calm and warm ... right before the earth starts shaking and the volcano explodes. And in that moment, it completely changes EVERYTHING! You are still the same person, but your life will never be the same. Your work, your marriage, your kids and your physical body all have scars, fears, and a knowledge that in a blink of an eye, what once was normal, can all change…. living in fear is not normal.
Fear is something that brews. Most of the time you can talk yourself out of fear, but deep down, fear still festers. Maybe it’s feeling a little lump, or a sharp pain, and fear just convinces me the cancer must be back and this time I’m going to die. No…. shut up…. stay away. But fear is still there. Feeling scared is not normal. It is what it is… it is fear! But instead of burying this feeling deep down and letting it build steam - when I truly pull fear out in the open and look at it in the eye, I see the worst thing I feared DID happen… I was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. It WAS horrible. It WAS scary. But that fear had no power over God’s almighty healing power and the promise He has for MY future. Do I know how long my future will be on earth? NOPE. Could the cancer come back? Could I get diagnosed with COVID and die tomorrow? YEP. But I KNOW that God has something more planned for me. He never wanted me to go back to my old normal or find a new normal. He wants me to live everyday to glorify HIM…. and in the world … that’s not normal…. but that’s the best part. So today, May 9th, 2020 … I declare I don’t want to be normal. I want to live in HOPE! Like Romans 8:24-25 says, “For in this hope we are saved. Now, hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” This Hope is not normal…. but it is the best part!