More From Victoria Walsh

When I wrote my devotional for today, “The Ordinary,” during the summer of 2019, I was in the midst of what I feared was an unwelcome development from the cancer for which I’d undergone surgery in 2012.  I gritted my teeth through an interminable number of frightening tests (frightening both in terms of the results they might unearth and how they might be affecting my body) and stressful medical appointments, then I prayerfully exited that expressway to seek a more natural course.  A naturopath gently manipulated my internal organs and recommended dramatic dietary adjustments. These tactics astoundingly and delightfully improved decades of problems, and my symptoms at the time disappeared.  Now at 69, as I keep refining my habits, I feel increasingly stronger and freer. I can’t get over how God used a negative experience in my life to revitalize it.

I know that many are not so fortunate, and I am profoundly saddened when I reflect on what they have to endure.  I’ve lost people I’ve loved to the cruelty of cancer, and I will never forget feeling the frightening grip of its claws during my darkest days.  I wholeheartedly pray for each person in these and other dire, uncertain circumstances to fully experience God’s closeness, healing, mercy, and comfort.

I also know I may not always be so fortunate myself.  Like everyone else, I cannot see beyond each day—each second, really—and need to trust and cling to God for everything.  I’m frequently flooded with gratitude knowing that when we’re finally home in the Lord’s unfathomable presence, we will be released from all our earthly afflictions and anxieties and will know only unending bliss. I feel best when I let that be my focus. Who could ask for more than the gift of a perfect future like that? 

The ordinary things continue to be the tools God uses to anchor me in my present through its inconstant conditions and challenges.  Basking in the romantic, lulling sound of the horns of the trains rushing by near my home; meeting up with the gentle deer when I’m out walking and getting to talk with each of them, one shy soul to another; appreciating warm bedding and a warm bedroom when it’s way below freezing out after having lived through some painfully cold nights; feeling mesmerized and exhilarated by the sight of the sunlight shimmering on the river; hearing a lovely song, hymn, or other piece of music and being transported out of my preoccupations and staying transported well after the music fades—these are some of the garden-variety occurrences that regularly enrich my life.

God works miracles through the everyday. Jesus demonstrated this when he mixed spit with dirt to heal a blind man, when he fed multitudes with a meager number of fish and loaves of bread, and when he healed those who had simply touched the hem of his garment in faith.  We find ourselves sweetly surprised and often stunned to experience Christ mending our own wounds through someone’s touch, words, glance, or smile; guiding us to explore a new interest that extraordinarily enlarges our lives; restoring a relationship in an instant through a simple email, letter, or phone call after years of bitterness, disillusionment, or estrangement; brightening up a bleak time in our life with the flowers and foliage that surround us; and speaking longed-for volumes of encouragement to us through a whisper.

Can most of the elements of our lives—the innumerable, inestimable bouquets of grace from our kind and loving God—ever truly be considered ordinary?