THE SUNSET

THE SUNSET

Recently I had the opportunity to fly out of Salt Lake City at sunset.  It was gorgeous watching the sun sink lower in the western sky dipping below the Wasatch mountains.  As I gazed out the small window, I thought about chasing the sun.  Vaguely a high school math problem came to mind too complex to really process in the moment.  If plane “A” is traveling at 350 miles per hour and sun “B” is moving at a rate of…. well you get it…complex.  While I couldn’t really summon the math problem, I did conclude that we would not be catching the sun on this flight. 

Chasing the sun.  That is how I often feel when I try to find “normal”.  Like flying toward the sunset, that night, I am always flying towards normal or what I thought was normal before my son’s accident, but it is always out of reach. 

Normal.  When I am living my life, doing my thing, I don’t give it much thought.  I live most days in survival mode.  The battle is getting out of bed.  Once I do that, activity takes over and I am on my way.  But sometimes I find myself thinking about normal.  Desperately seeking a time where my heart was not shattered.  Or even finding equilibrium in the “new” normal or the new me.  One time my therapist said, “Brenda, you are still the same you, this is just bringing out aspects of you that you did not know existed.”  Uhhhh ok?? NO! I am not the same me.  I am a very different me.  Getting further and further away from that sunset, that state of normal that I seek.

On that plane, chasing the sunset, knowing I would not reach it, I was reminded that I would not be getting to the normal I sought.  But, even as the sun was out of reach, the Son, Jesus was right there with me.  Not only was the God’s son with me, but MY son was with Him.  What a beautiful thought.  What a comfort.  THAT is what I mean when I speak of God’s grace.

God’s grace gives me strength and because of my trust in Him, I find the determination to continue on to find that new normal, to figure out who I am, trying to make sense of, and reorder the world around me.  God’s grace reminds me of this:  The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. Psalm 18:2, ESV.