Understanding the Fog of Ordinary

I've been struggling.  Since Jacob went home, I've been struggling.  Not so much with grief.  I have a good understanding of what Jesus did with Jacob's story and the lives that boy touched.  I get that.  I have been struggling with the ordinary.

Life goes on so they say and it does - back to the ordinary.  We've gone back to living at home after living at the hospital.  We've gone back to family dinners (we missed those so much) with one empty chair.  We've gone back to working in an office, paying bills and taxes.  We've gone back to the 'little setbacks'  like septic problems and our teenagers bumping into other vehicles and cringing as we watch our oldest son flap his wings in his attempt to leave the nest.  -Pretty ordinary.

I have been struggling with ordinary.  Tasteless. Mundane ordinary.  I have been wondering to myself  "why are you so discontent with ordinary?"  My goodness we just came through the fiercest storm with all of its challenges and all of its heartbreak.  "Why am I not content with ordinary!?"  I have been hating ordinary and it made no sense to me until...

In a recent sermon Steve Denton was talking about love in I Corinthians and what it really is.  But toward the end he said "...When we are with Jesus finally we will not need Faith and Hope because he will be the fulfillment of those words...Love will remain".  There - right there... is the source of my not being content with ordinary.

I posted many times during and right after the Jacob trial that I knew and felt the presence of Jesus "calling me out on the water".  He walked with us.  He spoke with us.  He was RIGHT THERE.  Then, it was over.  The trial, the melting of my heart in the crucible, was just like that -over.  The fog of the ordinary enveloped us once again.  It got hard to see him - like before the trial.

I now understand that my not being content is holy.  I saw Jesus every day while in the fire.  He was right there.  I saw him every day. Faith and Hope were fulfilled in the fire.  He was right there fulfilling it.  Do you know what that means?  I got another gift.  I got a preview in the fire of what it will be like when Faith and Hope are fulfilled for eternity.  No wonder the ordinary is not satisfying...I am not at all content with ordinary and I doubt I ever will be.

I'm not sure what the message is here for you because I am not sure how you can feel what I am feeling -this holy discontent.   I think maybe - we were not made for the ordinary and it took this fire we walked through to get it.  I hate the fog of the ordinary because I got used to seeing Jesus clearly each day Jacob was sick and for a few weeks after.  THAT is what I miss.  This fog of the ordinary does not satisfy - read Ecclesiastes. 

I miss Jacob.  We celebrate his birthday this Wednesday.  We're building a lego VW Bus.

Last off road trip with Jacob