Just Because It's Common Doesn't Mean It's Normal

“I understand.”  “I’ve been there.”  “I hear you.”  “There’s hope.”  These are great ways to let someone know that you’re on their team when they’re hurting.  

“Everyone feels that way,” however, can be a pretty detrimental statement.  

A friend of mine had a severe case of postpartum depression a few years ago.  She shared with a mentor that whenever her husband came near her, all she felt was hatred towards him, and that she wanted to throw her crying baby out the window.  The woman's response to this plea of desperation was, "It's okay--everyone feels that way after they have a baby."  

But, that was a really unfortunate thing for a mentor to say.  Because it made my friend feel normal.  It made think that her thoughts were OK, since, after all, everyone has them.  Right?

My friend spiraled deeper into depression.  She came to me, sharing her thoughts again and hoping for the same response that her mentor had given.  She wanted camaraderie.  She wanted to be told that she was just like everybody else.  

But, what I offered to her was far from affirmation.  

I loved my husband more than I could ever have imagined after each one of our babies was born.  He was my hero.  Even when I was practically delusional from sleep deprivation, I loved every second of my babies being babies.  I couldn’t wait to comfort them when they cried.  

I offered love and encouragement to my friend, but I didn’t tell her that she was normal.  Instead, I helped her call the doctor.

If you want to throw your baby out the window, something is wrong.  If you hate your spouse for any reason, something is wrong.  If you see warning signs of a deeper issue in a friend, this is not a good time to try to normalize the issue and say that everyone feels the same way.   

We need to know that we're not alone.  We need to let other people know that they're not alone.  We thrive on community.  On sharing stories.  On listening to stories.  On relating to one another.  But, camaraderie can be dangerous.

By no means should you hesitate to share how God is working in your own life and how He has worked in you in the past to overcome temptation and to battle even the most difficult of challenges.  But, it's your story, so you can tell it and offer real hope.  Don't try to say that every person has gone through the same thing, because it allows people to think that their struggle is normal.

And if we are just normal, then we must have been made this way, right?  If we are normal, why should we try to change?

Normal (according to Dictionary.com): conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural; serving to establish a standard.

When my three kids were all at their littlest together, I read the book, Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe.  I was so relieved to find that I wasn't alone--that someone heard the secret cries of my heart in a stage of life that felt so exhausting.  

But, here’s the thing.  I couldn’t stay desperate.  When I realized that my voice was audible to someone, I needed to let God use it to give me strength to move forward.  The last thing that I needed was to use my newfound camaraderie as an excuse for remaining in desperation.  Isaiah 40:11 says, “He gently leads those that have young.”  God made motherhood to be a progressive thing—He leads us.  Forward.  And He does it with grace.  

Hatred, like my friend was feeling for her husband, is not normal.  Despair is not normal.  Let me even go as far as to say that depression is not normal.  These things are far from uncommon, but they are not normal.  God did not intend these things for us when He formed us and dreamed of what our lives would be.  He designed us for love, for peace, for wholeness, for joy.  If we belong to Christ, the Bible says that we have been made new in Him--no matter what our unique struggles may be.

If we try to normalize our struggles, we end up identifying ourselves by them.  And labeling ourselves with the issues that we face can be terribly harmful.  Then, the issues become things like:

• My hatred.
• My anxiety.
• My fear.  
• My desperation.
• My depression.

There's nothing wrong with saying, "I struggle with _______," or, "I battle ________," or, "I have _______."

But, as soon as you own it as yours, it's harder to get beyond it.  As soon as you own it as yours, it's easier to try to justify a lot of sinful behavior as the result of a condition, rather than as the result of a decision.

There have been days during this last year of my life when I have forgotten how to have hope.  I have woken up on those days with "my CRPS," and I have forgotten that there is much more to my life than my limitations, regardless of the pain the disease causes me.  The truth is this:

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome is not MY disease.  CRPS is not for me--it is against me.  It is not who I was made to be.  I did not choose CRPS.   It does not define me.  It does not control me.

I have CRPS.  I am in a battle with CRPS.  God is on my side in the battle.  I am on a series of medications to try to beat the CRPS.  I am in physical therapy because I need help beating CRPS.  I have lost a lot because of CRPS.  But, CRPS is not my identity.

My identity is in Christ.  Beloved, whole, wanted, sought-after, guilt-pardoned, hope-filled, alive, free.

The Bible tells me that even though my body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because I have been saved by the grace of God.  If the struggles I war with are “mine,” I’ll get stuck focusing on them—focusing on my flesh instead of on Christ, and on how hard it is to face the struggle instead of on the hope I have because of Christ.  “The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace,” (Romans 8:7). 

The world wants to say that you were born this way.  That you are no different from anyone else.   That your sinful thoughts are the same as everyone else’s, so it’s OK to think them.  That you can't help it.   But, if you are know Jesus--if you are in Christ--then your identity is in Him, not in the challenge that you are facing.  You are not depression.  You are not a disease.  You are not an issue.  The issue doesn’t own you.  God does.  “If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed,” (John 8:36).  

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--His good, pleasing, and perfect will," (Romans 12:2).

Here are some take-aways:

1. We all struggle.  Some of our struggles need a little more outside help than others--and that's alright.  But, we need to work towards getting better, not dwell underneath the label of the struggle.
2. We all sin.  And…no matter how many people might think in a similar way about something, sinful thoughts are not OK to entertain.  It doesn't matter what they're rooted in or what they're about.  
3. We need to stop trying to normalize our struggles and our sins as though they are our permanent identities.  We need our identities to be in Jesus and our thoughts to be focused on what He says is true.  

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things,” (Philippians 4:8).

When we are falling, we need to be lifted up with words of life.  When a friend is struggling and we are in the position of the listener, we need to pause before we say anything and ask ourselves, “Am I affirming something that's actually unhealthy?  Am I condoning something that’s actually sinful?”  Our words have the power to point people toward Christ or in the other direction.  If you find yourself using the phrase, “Everyone feels that way,” you should probably step back and check your sources to first find out if it’s actually true.  

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me,” Galatians 2:20.

Where is your identity?  What are you labeling yourself with today?

Regaining Ground.

Last October, I sat in wheelchair in excruciating pain that was expected to remain in my body for, possibly, my whole life.  My husband and I looked each other in the eye.  Held by a Savior that we cannot see.  We looked at what we had lost.  And we thanked God that He is always good.

We journeyed.  We mourned.  We found joy in suffering.  We hoped.  Countless people prayed.

I learned to trust the God who sees when nothing in front of us was familiar.  He carried us.

I watched my husband take on both of our jobs.  He carried us.

I felt the love of family, church family, and friends from near and far surround us in immeasurable ways.  They carried us.

I watched my previous paradigm for what it meant to be a mom to these beautiful little children shatter and have to dramatically change.  I watched my kids play from a distance because they couldn't climb into my lap.  I watched their faces shift on FaceTime when they found out that I couldn't come home from the hospital to kiss them goodnight.  I watched my baby grow in other people's arms.  I watched him struggle for six days to learn how to take a bottle because I couldn't feed him anymore.  I watched him turn away from me for two weeks when he didn't understand why I couldn't be close to him.  I watched people be the hands and feet of Jesus as they signed up for shifts to take care of our kids, clean our house, bring us groceries, drive me to appointments and to church, and make us meals.  They carried us.

I wasn't promised an end.  I wasn't promised a remission.  I wasn't promised hope for my body.

But God was my hope.  He is my hope.  He carries me.  In ways I can see and in so many ways that I can't.

And I'm thankful.

For the right combination of prayer, persistence, physicians, physical therapy, and pain treatments.

For the things I wondered if I'd ever even be able to attempt doing again.

For all of the uncertainty.  Because it causes me to lean into Him more.

For all of the pain.  Because it helps me to identify with His suffering.

For all of the loss.  Because it reminds me of what really matters.  And it reminds me that He sustains me.  That He is my strength.  That He is my security.  That I can never lose my Salvation from Him.  That He will never leave me.  That His love will never fade.

I'm thankful for Jesus.  Because He is more than everything I need.

And...because I'm out of that wheelchair.  Off of those crutches.  Walking!  Bending.  Lifting.  Moving.  Building up muscle.  Regaining ground.

Thank you, faithful friend, for walking this journey with me.

"You gave a wide place for my steps under me, and my feet did not slip," (Psalm 18:36).

What does He hear?

I sit.  The sound of my littlest one testing the waters of speech and language rippling in my left ear, and in my right, the mumbling of the ocean against the dock and the boat.  The cares of the coming hours can wait.  I listen.  The Spirit of God rising on the horizon with the morning sun, rising in my soul and breathing into me the life of a new day.  A fresh day.  A beginning.

What does He hear?  The One who rose over these waters at the very start of it all, so many, many years ago.  The One who speaks life and days and beginnings into everything.

The murmur of the breeze and the song of the birds.  The anxious thoughts in my heart that wear me down, weigh me down.  The thoughts in the hearts of those closest to me.  The thoughts in every heart from here to the ends of the earth.  He knows me.  He knows us.  He knows this day.  He sees how it will end.

What does it sound like to Him?  To the One who is before all things, and by Him all things exist.  He holds the rising of the sun and the burdens of my soul in His beautiful, powerful hands.  What does He hear?  He who is not worried.  He who loves deeply.  He who cares completely.  He knows what He is doing.

I rest.  To be.  To be with Him.  To listen to Him and to wonder at Him and to gaze on His beauty.  Heard, and hearing.  Found, and finding.  Held, and holding.  Known, and knowing.

"The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.  You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." (Isaiah 58:11).

It wasn't supposed to be like this

I've had scores of dreams throughout my life.  They've encompassed everything from athletic feats to artsy careers to creative projects to grandiose business opportunities to jungle mission fields.

Well, that might be a stretch.  The jungle part.  I'd like to think that I'm brave enough for the jungle.  I'd be more honest to say, "tropical mission fields."

I work hard at every dream I dabble in.  I do all of the research.  I put in the practice hours.  I imagine every piece of my life in perfect order around my position within the dream.  I play the part until I hit a roadblock.  I'm devastated when I don't get an A+ (for at least my effort).  I don't give up until the next grand endeavor brews its way through my constantly stirring mind.

I've failed countless times along the way, but I usually pull myself back up by my bootstraps and set off a-courting my next dream.  I stick with few things long enough to become truly good at them, but I work hard enough to hide it.  And, if I really can't master whatever I'm knee-deep in, I just put on a face that looks confident enough to get me through.  You may think I can get by as a ballerina, but just ask to see a video of me tap dancing.  I was always terrible at tap.  But, in every performance, I made sure to have the biggest, boldest smile on the stage so no one would look down at my feet.

A downside to being a dreamer (aside from giving whiplash to the faithful ones who have joined me along the journey), is that I fall particularly hard when I think this dream is "the one," and it turns out that I can't measure up to its demands.

It's on the ground after those falls that the lies try to seep through my skin and I'm certain that I've lost everything.  The dream--it was me.  It was my identity.  It was my ministry.  It was my future.  And, for a while, I cave and let darkness set in around me.  It's easier to cry in the dark.  No one can see you there.

I'll tell you this, though:  It's hard to find your bootstraps in the dark.


From as far back as I can remember, one of the deepest longings of my heart was to be a wife.  One of my greatest dreams.  I set my eyes on Proverbs 31:12 early into my teen years, "She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life."  Recognizing that "all the days" of my life wouldn't begin when I met my husband, but rather, they began a long time ago, I determined myself that I would be the best wife I could be, starting right then.

I read books.  Countless books.  Books on letting God write your love story, and books on keeping your heart, body, and mind pure for the one you're waiting for.  Books on what women need and what men need.  Books about love languages and personality types and parenting.  I read cookbooks and home decor books and organizing books and "how-to-be-the-best-Proverbs-31-wife-the-world-has-ever-seen" books.

I made lists.  Countless lists.  Lists of the characteristics of my perfect husband.  Lists of the names of our perfect children.  Lists of the marriages I wanted mine to be like and lists of the marriages that I didn't want to mimic.  Lists of the meals I would cook in our perfect house and the schedule we would follow and the ages when our kids would be given their very own shiny lists of privileges.

I dreamed.  Constantly.  I was certain that I was going to be good at this dream.  We were going to have a perfect life together, my dream husband and I.

Well, I married the man of my dreams.  And, as it turns out, our life wasn't perfect.

I know--game changer.  Your jaw just hit the floor.

Within the first month of our marriage, I was already crying whenever we'd have a disagreement or whenever it would turn out that I couldn't check off the next box on my perfect-marriage-list.  The line that reeled through my mind, and often escaped my lips, was the very line that, years later, dragged me into a pit that seemed impossible to climb out of.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this."

I had spent so much time dreaming up the perfect marriage that I felt blindsided when it turned out that my husband and I were both real-life people with real-life backgrounds and histories and real-life junk and tendencies and incredibly real-life sin and struggles.  We were real-life people with all of the stark individuality and all of the different gifts and all of the interesting intricacies that God pieced together in His perfect sovereignty to fulfill His perfect plans in a world where imperfect people need a very perfect Savior.

When I said, "It wasn't supposed to be like this," I was saying that I had a better way.  I was saying that my way was the best way.  I was saying that this real-life didn't fit into the picture I had created in my dream-life, and that this real-life wasn't good enough for me.

When I said, "It wasn't supposed to be like this," I couldn't see the beauty in what life did look like.  I couldn't see the possibilities and the potential of the moment.  I couldn't trust that God was actually in control.  I couldn't be truly thankful, I couldn't really rest, and I certainly couldn't move forward, because I was stuck in a picture of today that I had created in the past.

When I said, "It wasn't supposed to be like this," I couldn't see the huge role that my own sin, my own errors, my own expectations, my own pride played in the conflicts in my marriage.  I couldn't see what God wanted to teach me through allowing those conflicts to happen.

When difficult life circumstances hit us, from relocations to uncomfortable living situations to the nature of raising small children to unexpected health issues to new jobs to wrestling with deep wounds from the past to disagreements about things that really matter, I want to be able to walk through them, and not to trip over them and fall into a pit that I dug with my own list of expectations for how life should be.

". . .Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us," (Hebrews 12:1).

I want to know that God is in every moment with me, and that He is always on my side, working out everything for good.  I want to be thankful in everything, to pray about everything, to love through everything.  I want to be prepared for as much as I can be prepared for, but to trust that God is the One who is really preparing me for things in ways that I may not understand, because He can actually see what tomorrow holds.

"As for God, His way is perfect: the Lord's word is flawless; He shields all who take refuge in Him," (2 Samuel 22:31).


I don't want to pretend that there are no messes in my life and put a facade of perfection on display.  I want to show off how desperate I am for Jesus--the only One who can clean my life up.

So, I'm done deciding what things are supposed to be like.  I'm picking myself back up by those old familiar bootstraps, and I'm embracing the imperfect.  Letting reality be more than I ever could have imagined on my own.

It doesn't mean that I can't dream, or that I can't make lists, or that I can't research and plan.  But, it does mean that I need to hold my dreams loosely, with my hands toward heaven, rather than clenched across my chest.  It's God's power that makes things happen--not mine.  It doesn't mean that I can't advocate or ask for something different than whatever my present circumstance may be.  But, it does mean that I need to trust that God knows what's best for me and for my husband and for our marriage, and that the answer will be for His glory and our good.

"Lord, You are my God; I will exalt You and praise Your name, for in perfect faithfulness You have done wonderful things, things planned long ago," (Isaiah 25:1).  "Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever!" (Ephesians 3:20-21).

Look for "To Choose Joy: the Shop," with handmade prints and pillows, coming soon!