Extraordinarily Ordinary

Have you ever found yourself daydreaming about becoming extraordinary? Trying to come up with a single moment that could change your life? Like pulling someone out of a burning car, capturing your child being silly and it goes viral on YouTube, writing a song that is number one on the charts, inventing something awesome that everyone needs, finishing first place in a triathlon, finding the cure for a disease, and your thoughts go on and on. As you think about these amazingly awesome things that could happen, you find yourself becoming disappointed or maybe even depressed about the current ordinary state you are in.

As I was driving to work the other day, I found myself daydreaming and becoming momentarily dissatisfied. Asking myself, why am I not doing more to become extraordinary? Am I doing enough? Then I caught myself only a couple seconds into that fleeting thought and was reminded that it is often in the ordinary moments that we find the extraordinary.  The ordinary moments that we think will last forever, but before you know it they are gone. Like being present at the dinner table with your family and hearing a story that makes you laugh so hard your sides hurt (maybe even pee a little). The cuddles on the couch with your little one while watching a movie, and not just any movie, the one that your child has memorized and seen 100 times. Being asked to help with math homework because your child thinks you’re a genius, and they tell their teacher you are one (ha–no pressure). Buying coffee for the person in line behind you at Starbucks and seeing it bring joy to their day (then wishing you could do like they do in the movies and by drinks for everyone at the bar–the coffee bar that is). Finding out your co-worker is facing a tough challenge in their life, and you get the opportunity to pray with them for wisdom and peace (tears and hugs are shared).

Catching myself in that moment I prayed this prayer, “Lord, help me not to miss the extraordinary moments that are directly in front of me.” I started thinking about my beautiful children, my spouse, my co-workers, being pregnant with our soon coming baby boy, and the opportunities that arise daily for great impact with the most important people that surround me.  I instantly became grateful and it shifted my focus from all about what I could accomplish to become extra-ordinary to realizing I was already living in the extraordinary. It is the ordinary moments that turn into the extraordinary as we stay present to those around us.