I’m not the girl who turns heads on the street.  I don’t have the perfect body or the right hair or the right makeup or even the right clothes.  You’ll never find me on the cover of a magazine or even in an advertisement on page 73.  You won’t ever see my name in lights outside a theater or hear me sing to an audience of a thousand.  You’ll never turn on the radio and hear my songs or see my books on the bestseller list.

Sometimes I wish for those things – to be prettier, skinnier, more outgoing, to have the chance to know what it feels like to be a bestselling author or a famous singer.

But most of the time I just wish I was normal. 

If I were normal, I wouldn’t have to carry two dozen medications and four medical devices through airport security.  I wouldn’t have to get up an hour earlier than the rest of the world to do all of the medications and treatments that keep me alive.  I wouldn’t be told that my cough sounds terrible by strangers, and be slowly moved away from by people when I cough.  I wouldn’t have to explain to potential employers, friends, boyfriends and strangers why I am sick, and what my life expectancy is.

But if I were normal, I wouldn’t be me. 

I wouldn’t have to rely on God for every breath I take.  I wouldn’t have the same drive to make a difference in the research of CF.  I wouldn’t know how precious time really is, and try to make the most of it.  I wouldn’t be as conscious of what’s really important.

It’s changed me, CF.
It’s made me tougher.
Stronger.
A fighter.
A survivor. 

And it’s made me fully dependent on the One who made me, who knows me, and who loves me despite my many flaws.

I may never be prettier, skinnier, be a bestselling author or a famous singer.  And I will never be normal.

But I will always be a child of the King.