Yet will I trust Him, though He slay me?

Let me ask you something: what is your ‘normal’?

Normality has, for all intents and purposes, lost its meaning for the majority over the past year in the maelstrom of Covid-19, and what was normal remains (at the time of writing) a long way off.

As it happens, I’ve been ruminating on the concept of ‘normal’ in the context of Scripture and the Christian worldview since summer 2019 – a time when Covid-19 was unheard of and ‘zoom’ was what one did on the motorway.

That summer, when I took my ‘normal’ monthly trip to London for client meetings (yes, I am a mother who also contributes to household finances with a fulfilling job!), I met another mother. That’s not unusual but the conversation we had was memorable.

Shifting sands

Millie had a 19-month-old daughter and family life had been routine, until one day it changed forever. Her little girl woke one morning and her spark was gone. She no longer smiled or chatted or returned the loving gaze of her parents. She withdrew into her own world, taking no joy in the things that previously delighted her. Their ‘normal’ had abruptly stopped and family life adapted to a diagnosis of autism – and a new normal.

As we chatted, we talked about ‘normal’ and realised there is no normal in family life. And once you find a normal you can bet your bottom dollar it won’t last long. It will briefly be suspended for high days and holidays and for the teething-induced broken nights and the tummy bugs; but the major challenges which we neither anticipate nor plan can consign our normal to the past.

Normality in my own household shifted forever when one of my children became unwell with a mental-health illness. Our family’s survival has been entirely dependent on the Lord – and this is where it all turns for the Christian parent.

Christ is our anchor when life itself becomes as shifting sands. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. There is no change in God’s ‘normal’.

Hannah

Think of Hannah, sweet Hannah of old whose ‘normal’ for many years was emotional and spiritual distress at her infertility. Taunted and provoked by the other wife in her marriage (a mother of many), her husband’s profound love and respect for Hannah could not replace her overwhelming desire for a child.

But instead of becoming angry and resentful, she took her distress to the Lord – at the temple itself where she was safe from her rival’s mocking. The Lord saw her immense pain and her great faith and granted the desire of her heart. Probably within the year, she delivered the son she had hoped and prayed for.

Her new normal became the joyful if exhausting life as a first-time mother.

How heart-wrenching it must have been, then, for Hannah to take Samuel, still a little boy, to the temple and fulfil her promise to dedicate her firstborn son to the Lord’s service. There were no U-turns with Hannah! A new normal ensued – life without her son in the home. But she was at peace because she trusted the Lord and she knew her son was safe in the temple with Eli. And the Lord blessed Hannah with five more children.

Just like Hannah’s experiences, our lives as parents are like the sea. There are the calm waters and the gentle ripples in the breeze; and then there are the tumultuous waves of the storms. And when we feel we are drowning, Jesus comes alongside and whispers with a still, small voice: ‘Be still and know that I am God.’

Normality in this sinful, broken world is precarious, but the Lord’s ‘normal’ is a constant. Then when the difficult and distressing events rock our normal, as they did to Job who lost everything, we can embrace the Lord’s steadfast love and say with Job: ‘Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.’