Growing Pains

 

My children occasionally complain about their bones aching, especially their legs, and especially at bedtime. They lie down and relax and I think because they are holding still they start to realize all their aches and pains. Growing pains. At our house they seem to happen around age 6, 8, 10, and 12+.

 

I get growing pains too. Mine aren�t physically in my legs, but more in my head and heart. My soon to be 13 year old son has been complaining about his legs lately and every morning when he comes into the kitchen I think he looks taller. Or his arms look longer. He�s growing almost as fast as our two month old baby. In two months she�s grown from a curled up newborn to a stretched out chubby cheeked doll. Instead of her feeling the growing pains though, I am. I find it painful to lose sleep and daylight hours due to baby care. We�re delegating duties, stretching the schedule, and simply letting some things go for a season in order to fit higher priorities into our lives. I wouldn�t trade these baby days for anything, they are a beautiful thing and I know all to well from the previous 7 babies that it passes very quickly and becomes hard to remember. But it is painful, no doubt about it.

 

The funny thing is, the same things that I tell my children when they have growing pains, to eat good food and get enough sleep, apply to my growing pains too. When I�m taking my supplements, drink lots of water and less coffee, avoiding all forms of sugar, and getting to bed early, the growing pains are less painful.

 

Sometimes growing pains come when we�re exposed to new knowledge. Learning about healthy eating has been a slow and painful process. It started when our oldest daughter was a baby and we discovered that she was allergic to the protein in cow�s milk. At that time, the only place a person could get rice milk was in the health food stores, foreign territory to me. Ten years later, I�m still learning and trying to implement things I�ve known about but found painful.

 

With each new baby I learn lessons. From the mundane to the theological all of it is growth. That�s the positive thing about growing pains, the result is growth. I want my children to grow. As much as I enjoy certain ages, I really do want the children to grow up. And as painful as it sometimes is, I really do want to keep growing in my life.

 

Philippians 3:12-15 

12Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.

 

I imagine that someday when I�m old and gray and weak, I�ll still have growing pains. An attitude of humility makes growth less painful. Less so than the fall that comes with arrogance. I think that the more we look at life with an attitude of thankfulness and perseverance in living the way God wants us to the more we are able to accept each day, with all of it�s interruptions and disturbances, as God�s will.

 

Proverbs 16:9

The heart of man plans his way,
but the LORD establishes his steps.

 

Growing pains are part of the growing process. When we take the perceived easy way, outside of God�s will, when we take His word and twist it to say what we want it to say, when we give up because it hurts, then we are stunting ourselves. We don�t know what God�s good for us always is. And we certainly may not like it in our human understanding. But just like you don�t want your children to stop growing and God doesn�t want us to stop growing. We must keep marching forward living according to His word in spite of the growing pains.

 

1 Corinthians 13:11-12

11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

 

For me, right now, today it means to keep on caring for my sick little children in spite of it being my Laundry Day and my list of things to do today. Me, my, mine, and I, I, I, I, I must be laid down as childish ways.

Thank you God for establishing my steps differently than my plans and giving me more growing pains.

Date: 03/06