See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:19

After the last year, I am not sure I need to hear the phrase “new normal” ever again. In fact, I might start finding it a little triggering.

I know how the phrase is offered – it is meant to mean “settle into the now”; don’t put everything on hold while you wait for yesterday’s settings to return. It is a reasonable and often necessary sentiment. I didn’t hear the phrase for the first time in the Spring of 2020 – businesses and schools are always evolving to a “new normal” – but it was the first time so much of my world had ended up in the discard pile. The first time that “new” was an instrument of survival, and not improvement.

The other day I noticed that a small green leaf had poked through the dirt in a pot that I didn’t realize contained anything that would have survived the winter. I think it might be a new tulip, but I’m not sure yet.

This past week as we collected images for the Sunday morning videos, we had images of new little buds and flowers for the first time in months.

And as I reflect on these wonderful, expected, predictable demonstrations of rebirth, I can’t help but think of how amazingly normal God’s “new” really is. How extraordinary it is, in a world of change, to count on His miracles; His mercies made new every morning.