Leaving Normal For Amazing!

This past week Maya Angelou died at age 86.  She will be missed greatly for the many gifts she shared with the world, even as her legacy continues.  One of her quotes I heard this week has given me pause.

"If you are always trying to be normal,
you will never know how amazing you really are"

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I was lamenting to my cowboy preacher about not being "normal",  or feeling normal.  Okay, maybe I was having a bit of a pity party over it.  I will spare you all the birth to age 66 details, but suffice to say, the path I was taken down as a kid and the path Joel and I have traveled as adults has not been close to "normal".  Or at least the world's idea of it. This day I pondered the direction God has been taking us the past two years.  This new journey with supernatural healing and encounters with Holy Spirit. The one that has us just a little to the right of crazy!

Don't misunderstand me, at this time in our lives we are delighted to have our faith stretched and shaped by new experiences and a deeper relationship with Papa God.  But there are moments I desire to just fit in.  Moments I long to be among others with skin on who "get" where we find ourselves.  Others who think that just a little to the right of crazy is "normal".  Less lonely?  Ready for that.  We would never sit down and refuse to go where God is calling us, but in our mainstream denomination we no longer blend in.  We are not just Lutherans.  We are Lutherans with an add on.  We speak in tongues, believe God wants you well and that sickness was covered by Jesus' death on the cross.  (Please note that I am fully aware that most mainstream churches don't embrace these ideas or gifts either.)

So far, the only place where I have felt normal in the sense of blending in was at St Paul's (Lutheran) Westport in Westport CT.  A long, long drive to church from northern Iowa!   I don't think a move East is in our future, so maybe what I need to be do is let go of the need to be normal....which comes with the need for approval.  Both are destructive.

"If you are always trying to be normal,
 you will never know how amazing you are!"

Maya

I am amazing......in God's eyes.  And if in God's eyes then I better embrace it!  I am amazing.  YOU are amazing!  We can shake off the need to be normal...the need for any one's approval but God's.   I am still holding on for friends who echo our journey and I believe God will provide them, but normal is just a setting on my dishwasher.  I'm ready to leave it there, embrace our just a little to the right of  crazy 100%, and move into amazing!

Yesterday I was upstairs getting ready to change when my hubby came up barefoot, wearing shorts, a red windbreaker and his cowboy hat.  Yes, he looked a bit silly.  He invited me to go outside with him and slosh through the rainwater running fast and deep down the side curb of our street.  I declined, but he coaxed me out into the rain, and we walked up and down the street as the water washed over our feet and the thunder rumbled overhead.  Once I quite worrying about what the neighbors would think and let myself remember how much I loved this as a child, I had a delightful time playing in the rainwater!  

"If you are always trying to be normal

you will never know how amazing you really are"!

Maya Angelou

 I am giving thanks today for the supernatural, for not being normal, and for being amazing in God's eyes.  I am counting it all joy as I link up with Ann over at A Holy Experience.