"There is no normal life, Wyatt"

"The truth is that, until the consummation, there is no such thing as 'normal life'. There is a scene in the movie Tombstone that illustrates this rather well. Near the end of the film, when Wyatt Earp goes to see his friend Doc Holliday as he lies on his deathbed, Doc tells Wyatt how he was in love once, but the woman he loved joined a convent. 'She was all I ever wanted,' he said. He then asks his friend, 'What did you want out of life, Wyatt?' With a cynical tone that came from years of difficulty and heartbreak, Wyatt responded, 'Just to live a normal life.' Rather surprised, Doc answered back, 'There is no normal life, Wyatt. There's just life.' Most people who saw the film could identify with that line, for there is no normal life free from complications; there is just life with its messiness and ups and downs. Normal life ended in Genesis 3 with the fall and disobedience of our first parents. The covenant of grace, however, with its long saga of fallible sinner-saints who trusted in God's promise, tells us about pilgrim life. It does not promise us that our lives in this fallen world will be protected from complications any more than our neighbor, but it does promise us that a glorious end awaits us. The covenant of grace points us to the heavenly goal that the first Adam never reached, but that the second Adam has secured for us. It tells us that this life is temporary, and the best is yet to come." (from Sacred Bond: Covenant Theology Explored, 70-71)