What is Normal?

What is normal? I think "normal" in society and the world is ever changing at a rapid pace the past few years. I look at things around me and think often "that is NOT normal" but in actuality it is. You see strange and appalling things more and more. 

In each person's life "normal" is different for everyone and for every family. Traditions and habits and styles of people and families are different for each one. Sometimes, life takes a dramatic change and there becomes a "new norm". I remember when my mom got cancer. Life become very different in a hurry...for her, for my step-dad and for all of us. We suddenly had a new norm for our lives. Norm was pain med management, feeding tubes and driving to chemo and radiation and watching my sweet mom deteriorate as the cancer, radiation and chemo stole her health, memory, and dignity. It was hard but for 14 months was the normal for our family.

Society, our current government, Hollywood, and the media keep telling us that "Normal" is what they say it is and that we must accept that or be called haters or racial or bigots. 

For some children, normal is being hungry, abused, different boyfriends or girlfriends constantly moving in and out, drunkenness or drug use of care givers and seeing what the government can give you. Unfortunately, when this is normal for them as children, it often becomes normal for them as an adult and then is passed on to their own children. 

For some children, normal is a loving home where there is respect, church and the Bible taught. I didn't grow up in church but I was taught to pray and fear God and was taught respect for elders and authority and a good work ethic and paying my bills and being on time. Meals were always ate together as a family and talking together was expected. I was surrounded by love and laughter with my cousins as my first and best friends and my grandparents were a huge part of my life. I was a country girl and practically raised on a river bank going camping, fishing, swimming and playing every sport imaginable with my cousins. I would never know how to survive in the city hardly. I am 48 years old and have never taken a public transit bus or subway or even the St. Louis Metro Link. (Nor do I ever want to!) Normal for me was going barefoot, Pepsi, Koolaid, riding in a pickup (back and front) and boat rides and getting good grades in school and becoming a responsible adult.

Some children have normal as being sports driven and that is all that matters. ... To excel and be all you can be in a sport. 

For some, good grades and achieving a higher education and becoming important is what is driven into them. Their normal is studying constantly, taking tests, going to college and climbing the corporate ladder. 

Even though there are many "normals" out there and some would say that no one can judge another person's normal, I believe it doesn't take a psychology degree to recognize "off" or "odd" or even down right "crazy"...in other words, "Not Normal". It is not normal for a person to desire or to walk around with 30 piercings on their face. It is not normal for people to be going around beheading people because they are angry or for a religious cause. Those who desire to have genocide of certain sects of people as a control issue or to weed out undesirables is not normal!!! 

Some days, I am sooo ready for Jesus to come and call us home to Him by the trumpet sound that I can't hardly stand to go another day in this wicked world. Some days, I am ready for a Heavenly Normal with streets of gold and the tree of life and no more aches and pains and seeing my loved ones again. Some days, I just can't wait for that new Norm! 

I'm concerned for my future grandchildren (Addelyn Jane who is on the way in March and any others) and the world and country of the USA that she will be living in. What will be her norm? I'm fearful of what she will be allowed to live through. I know that as a child of God I am on the winning side and that someday my "normal" will be wonderful but I learned very young that you'd be surprised what you can live through! 

I know that this seemed very random as a post and maybe the thoughts a little scattered but I have been thinking lately about normal and what the world tells me it should be and quite frankly I don't like it.