"Find Your Normal"

Yesterday, we had an awesome panel discussion at our church about AD/HD. It was very enlightening, and even little inspiring. There were a lot of "pearls of wisdom" shared by our panel. I won't recap them all. But, there was one point that I thought was especially important. During the panel, the discussion focused on how do we care for children that are in public schools that seem more concerned with test scores and funding issues than they do dealing with a child with AD/HD? It can be a lonely place. At one point, one of the panelists reminded everyone to "find your normal." What she meant was that, while we must certainly deal with the bureacratic morass that is public education, we as parents get to define what "normal" is in our homes. If my child is a B or C student and that is truly the best they can do, than that is our normal. The point she was making is that so many parents buy into the pressure that the school puts on us to make our children into what the school thinks that they should be. But, that is not how it should be. The school's job is to educate out children. It is the parent's job to raise them. And part of raising our children is to find our own normal. This applies to everyone, not just parents or kids. So, often the church allows society to tell us what our "normal" is. And we go along. Or we do the exact opposite. We find society at every turn until we are ruthlessly engaged in a culture war that really has nothing to do with the kingdom of God. What is our normal? I don't know, for sure. But, I am pretty certain it involves sacrificial, self-giving love. Kind of like what Jesus did on the cross. That's just one option.