There Is No Such Thing as an Ordinary Life
The faithfulness of the quiet saints will one day outshine the loudest stories of our age.
In our age of celebrity and spectacle, we’re trained to look for glory in the grand. We scroll past quiet moments to find something more “epic,” something flashier, faster, louder. But if we could see with heaven’s eyes, we would realize what Scripture has always shown: there is no such thing as an ordinary human life.
Next to the author’s desk hangs a painting simple, beautiful, and deeply personal. It’s not from a gallery in New York or Paris. It’s an oil canvas by Audrey Strandquist, a mid-20th century farmer’s wife from Minnesota. She captured her soon-to-be husband, Wally, in a moment of still strength on a summer’s day in 1940, standing beside a bin of freshly threshed grain.
Wally and Audrey’s names never appeared in headlines. Their lives were quiet and local. But in truth, they were a part of a divine epic far grander than any we often celebrate.
The Glory We Miss
Psalm 103 tells us, “As for man, his days are like grass” (v.15). And we often treat such lives as if they are mundane, even boring. But to call a human life ordinary is to miss its miracle. It's to overlook the hand of God shaping souls, growing holiness, and weaving eternity into days filled with dishes, dust, and decisions.
Wally and Audrey lived out their faith not in stadiums or stages, but in fields and kitchens, in worship and work, in the loving rhythm of a lifelong covenant. They planted seeds literal and spiritual and waited patiently as God gave the growth.
In that, they echoed the slow majesty of the God who created grass and wind, stars and soil. In their simplicity, they preached a better Gospel than many loud sermons ever could.
Ordinary Lives with Eternal Weight
Like the grass they cultivated, their earthly lives faded. Audrey passed in 1998; Wally followed in 2013. They were buried near the small country church they served for decades Oster Covenant Church, a place most people will never hear of. But they lived for the One whose name is above every name.
Their legacy is not in worldly accolades, but in a daughter raised to know and love Jesus, who would go on to be a godly mother-in-law her own quiet faith shaping generations. The story didn’t end when Audrey laid down her brush or when Wally laid down his plow. The harvest is still ripening.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:42–44 that what is sown perishable will be raised imperishable. These lives, like seeds buried in the soil, are not gone they’re waiting. What was once fragile and fleeting will be raised powerful and permanent.
The Real Epic Stories
Isaiah 40 says that “all flesh is grass” and its beauty like a fading flower. But the same passage reminds us that while the grass withers and the flower fades, “the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8). That word includes the Gospel promise that even those buried in obscurity will rise in glory.
In the coming kingdom, the true value of a life will not be measured by followers or fame, but by faith. We will marvel to discover that the lives we thought were small like Wally and Audrey’s were actually among the most radiant.
God’s great story has always unfolded in small places: Bethlehem stables, Nazareth homes, quiet upper rooms. So it should not surprise us that the greatest saints may have been the ones we called “ordinary.”
The Glory to Come
One day, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in His wings (Malachi 4:2), and the so-called “ordinary” believers will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matthew 13:43). Every hidden act of faithfulness, every whispered prayer, every quiet sacrifice these will all be revealed for what they are: stunning brushstrokes in God’s masterpiece.
In that eternal morning, there will be no more withering grass. No more death. No more forgotten stories. Only redeemed lives, rooted in Christ, bursting with everlasting color and glory.
So the next time you’re tempted to think your life is small or your work is insignificant, remember Wally and Audrey. Remember the Gospel that turns soil into resurrection. And remember that in the eyes of God, there are no ordinary lives only eternal ones.
If this stirred something in you, share it with someone who needs encouragement, or subscribe to our newsletter to keep walking with us through stories that matter to God.
Posts
