If you’re a mama, I can guarantee there is one question you and I both have asked. It comes up after a dirty diaper change, after a fussy night, after a tantrum takes center stage in the checkout line.

I’m facing it now as I find more strands of my thinning hair sticking to the bathroom counter, the sink and the floor. 

So, I turn to Google, and I’m on the hunt yet again—

IS THIS NORMAL?

Google, I’m three months postpartum, and I’m losing as much hair as I am sleep. Is this normal?

Google, baby’s poo is slimy and green for the third day in a row. Is this normal?

Google, he’s sleep-walking and sleep-talking and acting a fool when I tell him no, he can’t buy that new toy at the store. Is this normal?

And we ask our primary doctors, our kids’ pediatricians, our OBGYNs. We ask our mom friends and our nurse friends and our own mamas, too.

IS THIS NORMAL?

Because that’s all the assurance we really need, isn’t it? At least we know we can handle that: the normal.

We can handle the easy much better than the hard. We can relax when we know there’s another side of the mess we’re facing. We can finally breathe when we know all we’re going through is actually expected. 

It’s normal. It’s normal to want to find answers and how to help our babies and ourselves.

It’s normal to need some encouragement that all of this uncertainty will work out.

It’s normal.

But sometimes, dear friend, we find that it isn’t normal. And we can feel the weight of the world crumble us even after trying our best to keep it all held together.

And Google can’t help us then. Only God can.

And we must decide whether we want a normal life or if we want God to turn it into something more. We must choose whether we can make peace even if it does not turn out the way we think it’s supposed to go.

And this is the real question each of us mamas must ask as we face the unknown. Normal or not, do we have the faith it takes to trust God is in control?

At the end of the day, the answer to THIS question is what we really need to know.

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God Trusted You to be Their Mother

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