Since COVID-19s arrival, normal has taken on a whole new meaning.

People talk of getting back to normal. What exactly does that mean?

And even if we did return, would that be a good or bad thing? Wont it just change again with the next medical diagnosis, job loss, death in the family, pandemicor financial reversal, etc.?

My friend, Heidi Hutton Rigoli, who I know through the caregivers support group sponsored by the Parkinsons Association of Santa Barbara, recently wrote an inspiring verse about the suffering that afflicts a caregiver who is helplessly witnessing the gradual loss of their loved one to a degenerating disease.

She writes touchingly:

Last night, snuggling together as we have for years, things seemed almost normal.Its clinging to what was once normal that causes my suffering.Its a matter of acceptance that everything is changing all of the time.The impermanence of all things as they are, including us.Sometimes Im in sync with it. Sometimes I refuse to accept reality.Thats when I suffer.

The trouble with normal is that it keeps shifting, morphing, though we may deny it for a season.

In my experience, when I find myself relying on the wrong normal as my reference point and set my expectations accordingly, I become disappointed, angryand disillusioned. My bar is set too high and I fall short of it every time. I am comparing reality to my fictional normal and am frustrated by the gaping disparity between the two.

What a recipe for inner turmoil. My background anger makes me like a cocked gun ready to go off at the slightest provocation. Sound familiar?

The Apostle Paul taught one of his disciples, Timothy, the secret of establishing the right normal in1 Timothy 6:11-17:

Fight the good fight offaith;take hold of the eternal lifeto which you were called ... He who isthe blessed andonly Sovereign,the King ofkings andLord oflords, who alone possesses immortality anddwells in unapproachable light,whom no man has seen or can see ... Instruct those who are rich inthis present worldnot to be conceited or tofix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God,who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.

Israels great King Solomon started out well with God, but then attempted to adjust his normal upward from an earthly perspective and lived to regret it, as outlined in Ecclesiastes 2:1-11:

I saidto myself, Come now, I will test you withpleasure. So,enjoy yourself. And behold, it too was futility... All that my eyes desired I did not refuse them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure ... Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I hadexerted, and behold all wasvanity and striving after wind and there wasno profit under the sun.

The passengers on the Titanic started out their ill-fated voyage with what they thought was a clear idea of normal.

It was only those who were willing to change that idea who survived, as author and journalist Senan Molony described in Titanics Band: Killing Them Softly: Even then, as the great ship sank to the bottom of the sea, most of the lifeboats were only partially full, leaving 472 unused spaces. There was plenty of time for more to abandon ship, but most stayed aboard despite rapidly unfolding evidence that she was going down. As one observer said, It is believed that this low number was due to passengers being reluctant to leave the ship, as initially they did not consider themselves to be in imminent danger.

The strains of classical music early in proceedings conveyed the message that everything was as near normal as could be ... Those brave souls who opted to enter tiny lifeboats were defying the prevailing mood, a mood encouraged by the fact that music was playing at all.

They were swimming against the tide, but their conscious and independent choices would save their swimming later.

The risk was in staying, not in going, yet it was made psychologically more difficult for passengers to enter an early lifeboat by a shipping line that compounded reckless navigation with grotesquely misplaced complacency and pride even after its surpassing vanity had been devastatingly punctured.

Will you consider planting your normal flag in ground that will never shift under your feet? As Hebrews 13:8 advises, make God your normal and you will never be disappointed: Jesus Christisthe same yesterday and today and forever.

D.C. Collier is a Bible teacher, discipleship mentor and writer focused on Christian apologetics. A mechanical engineer and Internet entrepreneur, he is the author of My Origin, My Destiny, a book focused on Christianitys basic value proposition. Click here for more information, or contact him at [emailprotected]. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.

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