Growing Pains

I wish growing was a one-time deal. Like when you turn 10, or 21; you just are. The process is over. Or like how kids grow to a certain point and then stop. I'm 5'11" and I have been since I was 12. My sister is 6' and she has been that tall for years. We grew to a certain point and that was it. No more growing was necessary.

Unfortunately and fortunately, life isn't like that. Even though we may get physically mature, where no more growth or development is needed, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, no one ever arrives. We never stop needing to learn and grow.

While I have known this mentally, and never considered myself as having ''arrived" in any sense of the word, I have expected certain aspects of my person to get "grown." Just over three years ago, I began a journey of brokeness. Through it, I learned that the god I'd created in my mind was safe and behaved a certain way, but the God who created me ISN'T. I wrestled with the concept of a God who wasn't safe, who didn't do what I wanted, expected, or even what I felt was loving.

The wrestling was a painful process, brought about by bad theology. I thought God promised to fix up my mix-ups and make life feel good. I WANTED it to be that way. Then reality slapped me in the face; life didn't feel good, and God was the One behind all the pain. As God slowly rebuilt the foundation of my faith, I began to see Him in a different way. He wasn't safe, but He was good, and I could trust Him. One day at a time, my broken and battered heart began to beat again. Life began to hold beauty and blessing again. At some point I began to feel like everything was ok, that I'd passed through the valley of the shadow of death and grown past needing the rod and staff of my precious Savior. Boy was I wrong!

Life is a journey, and the journey alternately takes us through mountain tops, green alpine meadows, and dark valleys. Just because God carried me through one valley doesn't mean that I'm ready to trust Him to take me through the next one. Nor does it mean that the heartache is all gone. I still cry, easily, when I think about the journey I've been on and how painful it has been. I'm only beginning to realize that the journey I've been on is the journey I'm still taking. I'm not done learning, and I'm not done growing. I guess you might say I'm still having growing pains.