I’m a “next thing” junkie.  Always looking forward to the next trip, the next activity, the next social event, the next fix.  When I don’t have it, well, I’m bored.

When I moved to a new country, sure, that was one long “next thing.”  But the high wore off when I realized how limited I was without language, work, friends or family.  I was frustrated every time I wanted to do something and couldn’t communicate my desire or find where I wanted to go.  So I found myself alone and bored a lot.

Oswald Chambers says “A true test of a person’s spiritual life and character is not what he does in the extraordinary moments of life, but what he does during the ordinary times when there is nothing tremendous or exciting happening.”

This season has been teaching me just that.  I have to work at cutting myself off from “the next thing.”  I am learning to stop hunting the extraordinary and stop fighting the ordinary.

So yes, my days may be spent on hold with customer service or hours waiting at the vet.  Definitely nothing extraordinary.  But I’m seeing what’s in front of me as I begin to recover.  There are people around me who are in the ordinary, and alone too.

Who are we in the ordinary moments?