Growing Pains

I was walking home from tutoring tonight and some thoughts began running through my mind. I'm so thankful that no one else was taking the same path through the Villas that I was or else they would have thought I had an imaginary friend in whom I was in dialog with. Sometimes, I am able to have a thought chain, one thought linking to the next, and I struggle in holding on to those thoughts just long enough before I can sit down to scramble them on the back of, though sometimes front of, an important receipt or type them hurriedly into my computer. As I was nearing the main road, my voice began to lower and my lips suddenly moved less and less further apart as I realized now that people would be able to see me.

As I was nearing my apartment, I found my friend Kendra sitting in the pizza shop, alone, though her winter accessories were still on. She was getting her food to go so she could head back to school to get some work done. I went in to chat with her for a bit. As I usually do, I began to unlink the chain that had just formed in my head. I'm glad I did; I was able to encourage her with my thoughts. She, in turn, encouraged me. Perhaps if I had kept on walking, she and I would have gotten our dinner but no encouragement, and I would have written down my chain of thoughts to you, only they would have been a smidgen more jumbled and a tad bit more messy.

My thought chain somehow linked itself to my first entry on this website. If you have not yet had a chance to read that one, please go back and read it before continuing on in this one, as it will make more sense to have read the first one first. :)

I just recently sent an email to my mother about a pryer request in her life. I gave her the verse, "Love the Lrd your Gd with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind." Matthew 22:37. I began thinking, How am I living out that command? Am I doing an adequate job? Am I in a place at this point, today, where I can be giving such advice and not living it out?

excerpt from that first entry:
"Expansion
When a vision is planted within your spirit, there will always be some type of expansion. You can't be pregnant and not expand. Your thoughts and ideas turn to action - not everyone will be able to recognize the fact that your pregnant, but eventually, as the baby grows, you will expand. People around you will be able to physically see your vision growing and enlarging, forming a heartbeat. As time progresses, your vision will become clearer, being able to point out the fingers and toes. The vision has now become an obvious part of you, taking over and consuming your life. You'll have to get bigger clothes. Bigger clothes might be symbolic of new friends. Your old friends don't fit you anymore. You have outgrown them. Is it possible to keep wearing the same clothes while pregnant? Sure it is, but you'll find it quite uncomfortable."

I am growing, and I can feel the pressure. I have some clothes that I'm beginning to find uncomfortable - things in my heart that I cannot let go of (people, events and past horrible decisions), things in my soul that are hindering me from freely worshiping Him (worry, doubt, lack of patience), and things in my mind that I need to fix (self-image concept and my lack of organization and time management). It's time I packed those clothes away and put on my new, better-fitting clothes. I'm having a hard time, honestly. I'm struggling... "My spirit is willing, by my flesh is weak." Matthew 26:41. It's like I'm acting like a child in these certain areas, throwing a fit about having to give these clothes away, as if they're really what I want.

When I was a little girl, I liked to go grocery shopping with my mother, hoping she'd get me those animal cookies in the circus box with the stringed handle (I'd open them and the first thing I'd do was bite the heads off of every one of them, showing my mother as if I had done a good thing...) I so wished I could be tall like all the grown-ups around me. They could reach the cookies on their own. I liked to sit underneath the basket as we shopped; it was like my hide-away. I could see and not be seen, though my range of vision was a bit limited. The moment I commented on a stranger's choice of footwear, however, the secret was out. Even then, I really liked shoes.

I was thinking what it would be like if I tried the same thing now, as a 22-year-old. As a 5-year-old, I could fit under the basket and it was perfectly normal and acceptable to be there; I was a child. All the women in whom I would comment on would smile and politely say thank you as Mom rolled me on by, usually apologizing for my outburst. To sit under that basket now would be ridiculous. I wouldn't even try because it'd be a silly thought to think I could actually fit under one of those things anymore. How would the women respond to my compliments? Would they even take them, or would they be more preoccupied with the fact that a 22-year-old woman was sitting under a grocery basket, thus totally ignoring and disregarding the compliment?

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, and I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me..." I Corinthians 13:11. When a woman or man of faith begins to give encouragement or Truth from their lips, but are living their lives under a grocery basket, things don't line up. Others will not listen to your words. Why should they? You're acting like a crazy person. I need to encourage eyeball to eyeball. The vision within me is expanding, and I am being stretched. I think I might have pulled a muscle...

I have been so tired of going back and forth with this idea of growing up. I've beaten my dead horse long enough. I know others are desperate to hear me sing a new song, one in which the chorus is not filled with an occasional melody of doubt and mistrust. Rhetorical questions race through my mind as I talk things over with Him... Are You big enough to really change me? Are You big enough to take me out of this pattern, or is this something that I am going to keep battling for the rest of my life? Why can't I apply the same faith I had on that day I decided to move to China to the daily heart, soul and mind struggles here?.........(sigh). I sometimes feel that the girl you are prying for is not the same as the girl who is speaking to you through her words. Yet, even though I feel this way, and even though I move from the hand of my G-d sometimes, He does not move...

Here is my problem: I do not receive, because I do not believe. "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask (Him) who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like the wave of the sea, blown and tossed about by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lrd; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does." James 1:5-8

It's getting harder as I move closer to my vision.

I must live by revelation and not reaction.

The rest of I Corinthians 13 says, "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

It's awesome to see here that what we know now is nothing in comparison to what we will know once we see our Maker face to face. Our trials, our disasters, our mistakes will be as nothing in light of Him. Our small vision that He has entrusted us with, because He loves us that much, will make much more sense on the Day of Completion than it does now. This expansion, these growing pains, are all worth it, though I do not fully know today my greater purpose, nor understand why He has chosen me. But like the end of the verse says, I am fully known. G-d knows what He is doing, so ironically in answer to my rhetorical questions, YES. YES He is big enough. All of this is for His glory and His praise because he is worthy of my everything.

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of Gd." I Corinthians 1:18.

I have His power, like every other believer, to overcome these pains and endure, daily seeking His wisdom that He so generously gives to those who believe. He has proved Himself in this entry alone, and that piece is satisfying for me tonight.