Laura Story: When Normal Blows Up in Your Face

We had to begin to embrace that this is part of our lives is not that God couldn't completely heal my husband.

I know that God can, but for whatever reason he hasn't chosen to do in the timeframe that is interesting to do it in the way that I would've wished. And so I really choice either trust that his plane is character is good work like a calm mood welcome to family life we want to help you pursue the you can find his family, or life. So what never ever go back to what you have an answer. I have an answer immediately think we were crazy. I'm going to say I was crazy traveling the country doing marriage conferences saying yes to almost every ministry opportunity so we are on planes. We're in hotels. We are in churches speaking doing great things, but it was we were fried I'm shocked you're saying yes.

She said over and over. We got a slowdown.

I guess it fell. I know and what I say every time I was just in a season neutral and quickly in the season Go and I kept saying yes I'm I'm blaming and I wanted everything back to the way it used to be normal. You know, so when a pandemic kid, you know now are no marriage conferences from our bedroom studio yeah I would tell a joke in our marriage conference and I go way you're laughing right because you don't know their so I put the chat that that was funny, but it forced a new normal universe is like. I don't think people's lives can be changed through video and they can in a powerful way. So I'm like open. We never go back to that in a resort about this is what we have Laura story with us today in the studio are welcome. I try to jump in wherever it is listening and learning whenever I'm with you to listen. I just sent you everything that's thinking what not to yearbook is a lognormal living and loving the freefall of faith. Great title and subtitle that we can dig into a little bit worried obviously sounds like you're saying the same thing so long, normal, does that mean we don't want to go back to normal. I think a lot of it is the past couple years have shown us how Fixated we can be on things getting back to normal place our hope in things could just be normal and sturdy and reliable and things not get canceled everything around but I think what it's kind of open our eyes to is looking to this world for a sturdy foundation that we should've never expected in the first place. And as believers the Scriptures speak very clearly that there is only one sure and steady thing that's God. So, if nothing else we really learned to no longer allow our hope to be set on the things of this world on the normal of this world, but decided upon our God and how did that work for you because you're a songwriter singer travel is 30 inches that you are all I probably like shut down as well right so me writing this looks before that I've written. Like I've been kind of about or studying something for a couple years and this is very much what I was learning in real time and that little bit scary. So even if you pick up the book you make is very much in process so I was responding the same way that everyone else was there. Is this very early quarantine days of everything's been canceled. So for me completely off the road just overnight the same thing you are talking about where I probably had 40 to 50 trips to the three of them being international trips and basically everything was canceled, yes and yes. So there's this anxiety of this thing.

That's my job. You are the provider you the funniest thing and moms can relate to this, especially working mom so I went from my Friday night thing spent on stage where people are like clapping for songs.

I'm just going to fixing dinner every thinking through email the day for all you people in them, turning their noses. This is very jarring, but it really made me look at something like my heart from this thing that I do like to give us a snapshot of your past yes of what's happened yet. A big part of our story is what you're referring to is my husband Mark not been married for 18 years and they been wonderful years of hard years and anyone that's been married more than like 18 minutes wonderful and hard time about eight quick learners, but for it.

It got hard pretty quick.

And when Mark was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Within our first two years of marriage sleep driving right and was about a year of them trying to figure out what what the problem was and said when he was finally finally got the news that it was a brain tumor. We scheduled the surgery. We were planning on going in and having the tumor removed and then maybe be in the hospital about a week but in-depth we were there for about three months endured a lot of complications and when we finally left the finally left that hospital three months later we are so excited about leaving, but it was clear to us pretty quickly that that our life that we had known before. We couldn't necessarily return to it.

Martin had a pretty substantial brain injury due to the surgery and the complications and sell quickly for us was the beginning of embracing a new normal. I was and he said he would never return to that normal that you used to have such a confusing thing. Also, just as young newlyweds but as believers that we had this picture of what our marriages gonna look like some little picture of God's good plan for our lives and even the Bible doesn't teach this. I had somehow come to believe if I can just pray enough.

Be good enough, then God eventually will work things out the way I think that he should exactly. And so the past 16 years has been a lot of us obviously growing in our faith, but more than that I like so often I'm I'm praying that prayer that Jesus did in the garden right before he faced the cross where he says I wish things were different, but not my will but yours be done. Now that was a journey or did I come quickly what you came in all if you watched us day in and day out. You may wonder why were not further along in it. In the journey that we are but it really is. It's something where we begin to embrace that this is part of our lives. It's not a season that we walk through and that's stuff to this as a minister is a songwriter. I grew up in church, hearing people give testimonies about God's goodness. It always went something like this bad thing happened.

I surrendered it all and then everything and it took me a few years to realize it's just not gonna be our story is not that God couldn't completely heal my husband. I know that God can, but for whatever reason he hasn't chosen to do in the timeframe that expected his intestine to do it in the way that I would've wished. And so I'm really a choice either trust that his plan is best I can either trust that his character is good or I can call him Lord and you're saying that a lot of us say that, especially with what we've gone through these last few years is likely to return to normal and you're saying is that a worthy enough goal. God never speaks in Scriptures about normal being one of the neatest things that you, as I was writing the book. It wasn't started off thinking I just want to encourage people to not place their hope in normal and pay working to make it through this and it was going to be okay God's with that. But the more I begin to look at the Scriptures is pretty exciting because when I began to see it's not just that God is with us in our shakiness and in the chaos.

What I saw was story after story of God doing incredible works through individuals that every single one of those began with him calling them away from that which was familiar and that which was comfortable all give us an example. You think about Mary, you know, you think about the normal first years of marriage that she was expecting, since he finds out that she's pregnant before the wedding with the son of God. Seriously, it's shifted everything in her life. It truly did the neatest thing is to see that Mary's response was she simply says behold, I am a servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word. Just this posture of okay this is not what I saw coming. I guess I'm not like Mary. Wait what details Angel I need some more details about that, but rather married to says I'm your servant get let your will be done, although I just got I'm sure you feel this is so hard to read your book so long.

Normal might know I want to say so long to normal. To me that's like. I like the familiar. I like knowing what today's going to carry tomorrow when it doesn't happen.

There's this disappointment that that grips us at times are like disappointed. I normal blood. One of the things that I can talk about in the book is that we don't need to beat ourselves up about normal because in a lot of ways we are created for that we are created for the stability and protection of the garden. We are created to live in such sweet community with our father that it kind of makes sense, why is a lot of what we want from normal to think about looking for and just hoping to get back to normal. Well, we don't have hearts to be broken. We don't want our expectations to be – were looking for predictability and protection because we are created for that and one of the stories that I talk about a little bit was looking at the Israelites that are they've left Egypt they left the yoke of slavery in Egypt in their head. The promised land, and they gets in such a weary state. I don't know if this sounds familiar, weary state the date they begin to think about so great we had in Egypt. You were slightly think back to it and just kept painting pictures way better than they had. But the thing Psalm 90 where the psalmist talks about the Lord being there dwelling place from generation to generation and it's it's not going back to the old way of stability and is not even placing our hope upon a stability in the future that may or may not come.

It's believing our stability now sounded a person is our dwelling place and we can rest in him.

I had a good friend.

Her son was diagnosed with cancer when he was 10 and the family was rocked and devastated and it was stage IV and so they really thought that this son would not make it and she said every single day. She was like I just want my life back. I just want to get back to normal. And so every single night. She said I could not get through in our without God, and I was on my knees begging God, I'm glad that you would let him live and she said I have never ever felt the closeness of God the way I did, she said. I felt his presence in a way that I felt him next to me.

I had his piece. She said it was supernatural so miraculously, he was healed he went through treatment. She's now close to 30 and having a doctor, but she just told me the other day.

She said this is sound crazy because I was begging God to get back to normal. And now that I'm back to normal. I'm petrified because I miss the days that I needed Jesus so desperately because now I can get through a day without him and that scares me to death even do, how we do ministry and how we reflect God to others when things are normal.

We have a way of coming across as very independent and self-sufficient.

Yeah, but the scriptures teach us so clearly that God is most glorified in our dependence in winning our need for him is showcased when our weakness is saying his strength is seeing all the more through us so I can definitely say that what we walk through is a family and not walk through.

But what we currently walk-through it puts us in a place of dependence both on God and others. It puts us in a place of utter neediness. I can't even begin to tell you how not put together. We are like what I call like the government is nothing but the truth is is we are neediness for God is seen very clearly and I used to think that was a bad thing, but now I know that his strength is seen through my weakness and I and I know that not just Jenna and I know that verse, but I know that in a very real and tangible way that is interested even listen to you just make those remarks years you get a smile on your face. You're laughing is just you know he's my source of strength is actually you tell me if I'm reading around but he's even your source of joy is a little valley there is a verse in Proverbs 31 and it's funny when women talk about a whole lot, but it talks about how this woman that she closes her self and in fine linens and she laughed to the days to come, and always look at that verse and thought if someone was describing me it would probably be something like she close yourself in free women's event T-shirts and she lies awake at night when your hands at the days to come. A lot of us do that. That is who I've been for a long time that a few years ago. I just came to point where I said if I believe God to be who he says yes and I cannot live that way any longer. What happened that took you there.

Well I turned 40 and 40 and had one of those when I grow up to be more spiritual that but realizing something grown-up.

Well, the other thing is not to go too deep on this, but when you have children, you begin to see things about your life that you didn't see before you start there like a year. Yes, things like one of my twins so we have a nine-year-old named as the twin boys Ben Griffin and and then our little Timothy's three and one day this is this is just a few months ago Benjamin work I'm doing bedtime with him and he says to me. Mom had the David's so stressed out I said, because just where you pick us up or gone so fast were running this and thought it was just so stressed out and we just do so many things so fast was so stressed out. Oh my great what do you think that the Proverbs 31 picture you truly want to be that person that when my kids look at my God through me when they begin to learn about who God is. They really believe. Not just in my words but to my life that he is provider if I tell them he is our provider he is enough we can depend on him, but I want to come up with plan baby yeah just in case. Or did they see me testing God so much that I truly can be that woman that last of the days to come. How do we do so long.

We do it is so easy to hold onto. It is almost grasp it, you know, it's almost like our security and you're saying now it's time to say goodbye to normal. How do we say goodbye there's some people that are being called to say goodbye to normal, and whether that's on just a new chapter that there's not quite ready to leave that old chapter for some people I know Melissa goodbye to them mother that's in the marriage or whether that's just the next season of life.

That's a new job just something that happened to make them need to embrace it more than anything, it's acknowledging that and and I just said this earlier, but acknowledging that the stability and security that were looking for in our circumstances.

Circumstances will let us down that we can only find that temporarily, but the fact that we have someone the person of God and his character is sturdy.

The fact that he is his nature is unchanging the same yesterday today and forever, and his promises are rocksolid that that's the sturdiness and that's all the sturdiness we could ever need is found in him and I know that that's a hard thing, especially when people are going to such chapters. I think the big thing that God is killing me regarding is that sometimes he will allow those multi-secure and will sometimes he actually sovereignly allows this to come out from under when I was I was raised as a military brat, meaning my dad was in the air and we traveled all the time so normal for me was constant change and I remember going through that and just despising the fact that it was constantly shaking up my life the moves every year to constantly shaking things up and making me feel like I long for a different life. But looking back on that now as an adult.

The change is what made me who I am today. So my normal even though it didn't feel like normal was actually something that God was using and weaving all through my childhood to prepare me for the ministry that I'm in today and I am grateful David and Wilson have been talking today with Laura story to help us understand that normal cortical normal can be thrown out of whack in our lives.

That's often what God uses to shape and form us more into the image of his son Jesus. And that's always always a good thing she has written a book called so long, normal living and loving the freefall of faith. We believe in this book, and when you head over to family life today.com and make a donation of any amount we want to send you a copy of Laura stories book so long normal. This book will help you process the trauma of loss of your normal in the past. Learn to rest in God's plan for you instead of constantly trying to control your circumstances and so much more. When you go to family life today.com and make a donation you can request your copy there will send you one as a thank you gift. Or you could call us at 1-800-358-6329 that's one 800 F's and family L as in life, and then the word today often when we think about normal. We want things to be just easy and so many times in marriage were examining both us and our spouse. Things are not normal things feel very out of whack. In fact, and that's one of the reasons why we at family life is created. The weekend to remember event today is the last day that you could sign up and get 43% off as a couple. When you register@familylifetoday.com when you go to a weekend to remember event.

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Or you could pick up the phone and call us at 1-800-358-6329 that's one 800 F is in family L as in life, and then the word today. Now this content today from Laura story or any of our family life programs have been helpful for you. Would really love it here. Today's podcast with a family member or friend, and wherever you get your podcasts really advance the gospel effort of doing it. Family life. If you scroll down and right now tomorrow demon and was going to be talking again with Laura story about the fact that sometimes God changes our normal very specific purpose tomorrow on behalf of David and Wilson. I'm shall be back next time for another edition of family life, family life today. The production of helping you pursue the really