I want to be normal, Chet!

One of my absolute favorite TV shows is Boy Meets World. (get excited with me now!) And there's an episode where the mom of one of the main characters is yelling at her husband about how she wants her life to be more normal.  They live in a trailer park and things around them are chaotic, at best, and so one day she gets fed up and grabs her husband and shakes him while shouting "I want to be normal, Chet!"

This phrase has been resonating in my heart for awhile now.  No, I don't think about shaking a man named Chet and yelling at him, haha, but I often have this exact conversation with the Lord.  "I want to be normal, Lord! I want my LIFE to be normal!"

Living overseas is crazy.  I think it's safe to say that the potential for something crazy, or not normal, to happen everyday is there.  Take this morning for instance. I was woken up by a phone call from a friend, B, who is really sick today and needed a big favor. To potentially travel with his wife (also my friend), by plane, to another city that evening so that their son could get the shots he needs and B could stay home and not have to travel being sick.

Not a normal start to any morning.

Normal is not saying goodbye to 14 different friends who've left Asia to move back to America in a year and a half. Normal is not always having to adjust to language and culture and go through transitions.  Normal is not losing electrity or water for days at a time.  Normal is not using hand signals to act out what I'm trying to say because I don't have the language.  Normal is not the rooster crowing outside my apartment window at midnight.

This life. I know it's not normal. I've (almost) come to grips with that.  Not normal is usually exhausting and leaves me stressed and anxious. But it keeps me on my toes, looking up, to the One who is also not normal. But good.  More wonderful that I can ever imagine. My God, who is the constant in my crazy, not normal life.

Edit: I didn't end up traveling with my friend.  The ticket was really expensive so she just traveled alone with her kiddo.  Had I gone... now that would've been another adventurous blogpost. :)