Tag Archives: growth

Growing Pains

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Aside from being one of my favorite childhood favorite TV shows, growing pains are no joke. Many times God allows us to be in uncomfortable, even painful circumstances to push us to grow. This stretching and strengthening exercise makes up your most emotionally and sometimes physically difficult times in life.

Looking at my parents’ lives I can see how much their marriage grew through their suffering during four years trying to adopt and years of caring for their ailing parents. God used each of these times to improve on their love for one another and for God himself. Seeing their growth gives me comfort in this season of life.

A friend and I were just talking recently about a time of suffering in her life. She described feeling small. I remember each day telling her she was still big, but it was hard for her to see her own strength. Now that a few years have passed she tells me she was always big, but she just couldn’t see it.

I have felt small during the last few weeks. I have thought about giving up, but it’s impossible to give up on life when God is at the center of it. He simply doesn’t stand for quitters of life. Like a parent he doesn’t always give the pouting child his full comforting attention during those moments of feeling small because he knows there’s something more to gain from our suffering and pain. He knows when watching from a distance is more helpful than immediately giving us comfort.

I am up at 4:00 a.m. writing this post because I am very uncomfortable in life right now. I have felt small, sad, angry, confused, even sick from the stress and pain of growing. When God woke me up at 3:30 this morning, even in my discomfort I felt things would be okay because this is just the feeling you get during the strengthening and refining process. I have witnessed many testimonies of the strength that comes from this pain, and it is worth it.

A loving God is not a God that gives us a life full of nothing but easy moments.

Please share your testimony of the growth and strength that came from your suffering.

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Wise Words for my Future

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Earlier this week a wise friend set me free with this statement, “You and God have a good thing going. I, too, feel there are some big changes coming up for you. Just know that not everyone in your life is going to respond positively to those changes, but if those changes are from God it is better to do His will than to please others.”

As the week progressed, I kept going back to that statement, feeling freer and freer to be who God has made me to be and to do what God has purposed me to do. I’m sure, if you have been reading my blog regularly, you have sensed my utter frustration at closed doors in my life. Part of my frustration is feeling that change is coming and not seeing the manifestation of that change. My thinking is, ‘If God has told me change is coming, why hasn’t it happened yet?’ I feel like the child in the back seat of the car screaming, “Are we there yet?!?”

The fact is we aren’t there yet because if we were it would mean running red lights, passing on double yellow, violating laws of physics. The same goes for life, sometimes if we rush to our destination, not only have we been reckless along the way, but we have also wished away our day, our week, our life to get to our final destination, death. I’m guessing that’s not truly what we want, and I’m guessing we probably don’t want the consequences of reckless living: broken hearts, stressful thoughts, and tired (possibly sick) bodies.

In the past week I have made a decision that affects every part of my life. As one friend explained, God knew that this would be a good foundation for change. When we set out to do a large project, we don’t try to develop the product right off the bat. We must first make a plan, from the ground up. If our project doesn’t have a strong foundation, it will fail. In the same way I feel God placing that foundation for further growth in other areas of my life.

This 34th year of my life has started off with a bang! I’m so excited (and yet terrified) about what God will do next. A change is coming God willing.