Ordinary Life...Amazing

I saw a lady on the side of the road this morning as I drove into work. She had a camera and was taking a picture of something across the road. It could have been the humongous Big Boy statue or the slow-motion pile up of elderly people in their Cadillacs and town cars pouring into the physician’s practice. I looked around trying to figure out what she was so moved by as to warrant taking a picture. Then I noticed a billboard in her range of view… It said: “Ordinary life. Amazing.”

Not sure if it was a billboard for some new wing at the baby hospital or for a rehab kind of place, but the words stuck in my head all the way to work. What did it mean…”ordinary life…amazing”?

Is that what I have? An ordinary life? An ordinary life that is…amazing?

I don’t know. I don’t if that is what I have or even if that is what I want to have. Don’t we get into trouble when we seek out things that extend past the scope of “ordinary”? For example, as teenagers, didn’t we drive fast and sneak into movies because going the speed limit and watching a PG-13 just didn’t “do” it for us anymore? And what about as adults? Don’t we seek out people and places that take us away from the ordinary? What about relationships? Are we not drawn to those relationships that give us a sense of excitement? Those relationships that remove us from the norm and so-called “boring” home life we exist within? Don’t you know people who go to work just to get away from their home life? I do…and they aren’t workaholics, they just don’t want to be at home with their family. Of course, you could narrow the margin down to them not wanting to be at home with their wife/children/chores/honeydo list/bills to be paid, etc.

"This is all there is??? Grow up, get a job, go to work for forty-some years, and die????"

I’ve been there. I have sought that rush you get from doing something you aren’t supposed to do…being somewhere you shouldn’t be… feeling a way you shouldn’t feel. Was it exciting? Sometimes. Was it boring? Actually, it did get boring…which says to me that EVERYTHING outside of ordinary eventually becomes boring. It is merely the novelty wearing off. Then, we look elsewhere for more excitement. We look to other people to help us not feel so bored and alone. We search in desperation almost, for that kind of feeling you got as a teenager when your boyfriend or girlfriend would drive by your house and honk their horn. That tingling in your tummy…that wave of nerves-on-end. We approach middle age and think the numbers MUST be skewed because we feel so young… When did middle age hit around 40, anyway? When I was a teenager, I thought middle age was 40, which was half of 80. Now that I am in my forties, I think middle age must be closer to 60. Yes! We shall live to be 120!! That’s better.

Anyway, an ordinary life that is amazing. It sounds like a conundrum to me. You either have an ordinary life or an amazing one. You are either covered in the mundane and monotonous or you awake every morning waiting for nothing, because everything is waiting for you…amazing you. How is it possible to have an ordinary life that is amazing?

Albert Einstein. Amazing life? Yes. Ordinary life? No. For Pete’s sake, he was Jewish and attended Catholic school. LOL Definitely not an ordinary life. Yet his contributions to society were amazing.

Cathy Klein. Amazing life? No. Ordinary life? Yes. I went to school with her in junior high and high school. Average student. Average grades. Got married after a year in community college. Two kids. Now divorced and spends time in the local bar on Saturday nights. Works as a data entry clerk.

What separated these two? Genetics? Intelligence? Drive? Was one simply happy with an “ordinary life” and never sought out anything “amazing”? Was one driven to accomplish amazing things and to leave their mark in history despite wanting an ordinary life? Again, I have no idea.

Here is what I do know…

Life is what you make it. You can try it on your own or you can kneel before our Creator and ask Him to guide and direct you. You can ask for forgiveness of sin and receive it from the only One who has the authority to wash you white as snow.

You can convince yourself that just one person cannot make a difference. However, one person can make a difference…it’s a matter of thinking about making one and making one.

People wander the earth, generation to generation, seeking the meaning of life. My guess is, questions about the meaning of life surface around age forty. LOL We ask ourselves “is this all there is?” We get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, veg out in front of the tv watching fake people with fake lives, then go to bed. We don’t interact with our families, we don’t turn off the tv. We have televisions in every room…but few conversations. People would rather watch a television show about nothing instead of have a conversation with the people they supposedly treasure the most. THAT, my friends is ordinary by today’s standards in the American household…and THAT is not for me.

I do not watch tv. I do not choose activities that leave my family wondering if I even like them, much less love them. I refuse to watch anything that would embarrass me if Jesus came in while I was watching it…which, of course, limits my viewing because most things on tv would be embarrassing. I don’t go to places I would not want my children to know I went. Again, this limits the potential places I will frequent. I refuse to watch movies that glorify violence or man’s inhumanity to man. What? That only leaves chick flicks. Ok. Chick flicks it is, then. I believe if you input junk, then you are bound to output junk. Seems to me a very limited, boring, ordinary life, yes? Yet, I believe my life is amazing…but why?

I have not cured cancer or even the common cold.

No one wants my autograph.

I do not make millions of dollars to play a sport.

I do not grace the cover of any magazines for beauty, popularity, or health.

I am not of royal descent.

I own nothing of extreme, material value.

I don’t know any more than anyone else.

I don’t have throngs of followers waiting for my next movie.

I am not a musical prodigy.

And yet, I have an amazing life…because it is ordinary.

Whoever subscribes to the ideology of taking time to smell the flowers, is a genius. Whoever accepts the notion that every path has a puddle and whoever remembers that we cannot change the direction of the wind, but we can alter our sails, is brilliant, as well.

You see, I have learned that for me to have an amazing life, I just had to embrace the ordinary and make it amazing. My life is not boring or lifeless, instead it is full of vigor and vitality. I dare say, even after twenty years, I still get butterflies when I see Big Daddy in his uniform or when we run into each other unexpectedly. I love the sound of him coming in the door at home. Knowing my family is safe, healthy, and happy fills my soul. I long ago stopped searching for things to make me happy for they were with me all the time…just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, whose life was ordinarily amazing, just like mine.

So, maybe that lady this morning was taking a picture of the billboard saying “Ordinary life. Amazing.” Maybe she has just been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness or maybe she just decided that going home after work was more beneficial to her than pretending to work late. Maybe she decided to love someone more than herself. Maybe she just buried her mother…or father…or brother…and is thankful for the time she has left....determined to use it and not waste it. Maybe she knows she does not possess the magic potion to cure anything or that winning lottery ticket. Maybe she woke up this morning just happy for another day to try harder at being better than she was yesterday. Maybe she realized we are all “Dorothy” and that Dorothy ended up with the most amazing shoes on her ordinary feet.

Maybe, just maybe…