Time to Grow Up!

Every once in a while I get the most brilliant ideas! You know...the ones that you just can't wait to tell people, because it will be life-changing for everyone! I had such an idea when I was an eighth grader. I know, shocking, right? It was the best prank anyone had ever come up with. I was a genius! I couldn't wait to tell the girls in my cabin at camp, because we'd been trying to think of something to do to the boys that would totally take them by surprise. They loved my idea, but we needed help. Youth pastors can't take sides, so naturally we asked him for what we needed...ketchup. I should have known he would ask why I needed it, and I almost hesitated to answer. But the idea was JUST TOO GOOD!!! So I told him. Imagine my complete and utter despair when he rejected it with a laugh!!!! To this day, I remember thinking, "He has no idea how great this idea is. Why can't he just see the awesomeness?" 

A couple years later, as a very mature, much wiser 15-year-old...you know, wise enough to know that my mother was completely ridiculous in her expectations of me which demanded that I show her I meant business by stomping up the stairs so loudly that even I thought I might fall through...I thought back on that moment and was immediately horrified and completely embarrassed that I'd told my youth pastor I wanted to put ketchup on feminine products and stick them to the walls of the guys' cabin, and that I had believed with all my heart that it was the prank of all pranks! Even now as I type I can feel the heat rising in my head.

By the time I was 24, I had it completely under control, no more slamming the door in my mother's face only to wonder what to do for the next few hours stuck in my room, because there was no way I was going out without her begging for me to forgive her for being so strict. And yet, my very own mother, who should have realized that I had been a legal adult for three years told me to "grow up" when I quite justifiably got upset with my sister for making my bed for me. Of course, that sounds like a nice thing to do, but she was only doing it because her soon to be fiance was arriving that day and she didn't think I would make the bed as good as she would...yeah, even now, I'm kind of siding with my mother. ;)

Looking back on some of the most intensely passionate moments of my "growing up" I am able to see that making decisions in the heat of the moment don't always prove to be the most sound.

This week, I studied Biblical maturity with my Regeneration girls. We learned that our mindset of insecurity, manipulation and helplessness is really immaturity! It's easy for me to assess the maturity level of women whose choices have ended them in a rehabilitation house. What's difficult is to look at my own life and find signs that there is still some growing up to do! I have sought affirmation when I needed to be confident in the brain and creativity God has given me. I have manipulated situations to go my way rather than simply speaking up and stating my ideas. I have played the "helpless victim" when I could have changed the situation with a simple step of action.

1 Corinthians 13:11 (HCSB)
When 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 put aside childish things.

Jan Silvious says in her book, Moving Beyond the Myths, that we have listened to the lies of the great Deceiver when we act toward others as children and toward God as wise adults that don't need his help. It's the opposite that is true and freeing! When I go to my Abba Father as His beloved child, He gives me the affirmation, wisdom and strength to put away childish behaviors in my relationships with others. What a joy!!