(Mostly) Normal

Gosh. It’s been like a million years since I’ve had a moment to breathe and contemplate life again.

It’s also been like a million years since I have wanted to sit down and contemplate life again. 

My poetic, romantic, reflective inspirations of the past year seem to have vanished as soon as we moved. Writing? Journaling? Blogging? What’s that?

The school year has started, which consequently produced automatic routines, habits, and family grooves. You know, our Mondays are like this, Tuesdays are mostly lived in such and such way, Wednesdays we have this event, and so forth the week goes on. Normality. Predictability. Just a small sense of it of course. Nothing is ever actually “normal.” But then again, you kinda start realizing that the abnormal is just as normal as normal can get, so you just go on with life and call it normal.

It’s been a couple weeks since a kid has been sick, for example, so our “normal interruption” is about due. Ha. The counterintuitive nature of that phrase humors me.

Anyway…

In my routine I decided to designate Tuesdays as my writing days. I’m only publishing that fact so that it motivates me to see it out. You know… no one wants a flaky online blogger—right?

We’ve been in Minnesota for 79 days. A beastly 79 days at that. Moving is not an activity for the faint at heart. Bless all of you military folk! Uprooting yourself is one thing, starting the roots back up again is an entirely other thing. The past 79 days have been just that… regrowing a new little life here. Each decision, no matter how insignificant, feels vital in setting the stage for our new life. Friends, church, work, school, errand-running, back-home relationships, etc. have slowly and painfully grown into what we are starting to call normal life. At first it was exhausting, nerve-wracking, and a hot mess of emotions and tangled schedules. But now, things are starting to smooth out. We are all (mostly) content. We can all (mostly) think straight. We can all (mostly) plan ahead.

Oh! Here’s some happy news! Have you heard?! Bobby isn’t the only Kunkle taking classes! You bet, this seminary wife (me!) is “taking” a Bethlehem class as well! (I quote “taking” because I’m just auditing an Old Testament class, so I’m not actually turning in homework or anything.) I go to class once a week and do all the reading, which has been a blast! Long story short, I decided I ought to get the most out of being 15 minutes away from an amazing college/seminary, I might as well capitalize on it! 

So here we are, two crazy Kunkles reading, learning, and talking a whole great deal about Jesus, God, the gospel, the Bible, and so forth.

Although our schedule and the physical areas of our lives are comfortable, I’m still kind of waiting for my heart and spirit to catch up. I feel like I left a certain Sarah in Nebraska who hasn’t found her way up North yet. Namely, the prayerful, God-minded, Bible-loving Sarah. I feel like a part of me was left behind. Is she going to come back?

But if God has taught me anything, it’s to not trust myself to fix my problems. My own tactics, strategies, and executions are almost always faulty, skewed, and foolish. But God’s tactics, strategies, and executions are always effective and brilliant. Although life feels good, there is a sense of waiting, I feel. Waiting for God to stir my heart and affections back to him continually. I want my heart on board! 

Since I’m taking an eight-week Old Testament class I have been devouring very large chunks of scripture. Like, I’m talkin’: reading-the-Pentateuch-in-five-days! Phew! That was quite the feat. But that fast-paced storyline is symbolic to my life, now that I think about it. We are simply swallowing all that life offers and living the narrative rather than thinking about the narrative. It’s produced in me a big-picture trust in the Lord. It’s done me good to see God working on my behalf even when I have no idea, thought, or intention as to what I’m doing. Today followed yesterday, and tomorrow will follow next. Each day has moved along with its new Minnesota flavor, and I’m simply living it. God maneuvers how he sees fit, and I’m (mostly) enjoying the ride!

I tell everyone that we are essentially building blocks to our new life. We moved and found ourselves with a fresh, clean slate. No commitments, no relationships, no duties, no ties. And I keep saying, “Every decision we make is putting those first couple of blocks on.” But I ought to change my words. Come to think of it, I’ve “made” very few decisions. Instead, things have come to me and I simply do them. Maybe that’s what it means when Paul says God prepared beforehand good works for us to walk in. I ought to say, “Everything that happens is God putting those building blocks right into place for us!”

Ah, how fresh it feels to contemplate life again. It’s good to be back in action. Well, mostly in action. I guess next Tuesday will speak for itself. It will be a test to see how (mostly) normal life is or not!