growing pains

“oh, darling, don’t you ever grow up… it could stay this simple.”

dearest rory,

when I was little, I wished I was older. now that I'm older, I wish I was younger.

today I caught myself searching the “childhood memories box” that I keep tucked away in a convenient corner of my brain. I rummaged around in there, blowing away cobwebs, laughing at some of the sillier articles, searching for a certain memory in particular…

and at last I found what I was looking for.

when my little sister and I were a lot younger, we lived in the same house, but different worlds. I lived in the real world, and my sister lived in the imaginary world. our dinners tasted the same, but mine was just macaroni and cheese, and hers was something fit for a queen. our car was just a car to me, but to her it was a carriage. the empty seat beside me, was just an empty seat beside me, but in her eyes, it was where one of our twelve invisible siblings was sitting.

she loved playing pretend. I loved being practical.

and sometimes our two worlds would collide.

for example:

when disaster struck, like if my clumsy self (yes, I was even clumsy back then) accidentally bowled half her doll house family over with my elbow, or if dad unknowingly sat on her pretend hamster, her big brown eyes would get even larger and she would quickly say, “pretend that didn’t happen.”

“wait, what?”

pretending something hadn’t happened, when, in fact, it had, would bug my miniature self. and I would try to explain to my little sister that we couldn’t just pretend something hadn’t happened because we didn’t like the situation or it was inconvenient to us. and she would try to explain to me that it just made everything easier if we pretended certain things hadn’t happened. then, with folded arms and narrowed eyes, we would look at each other for a few moments, puzzling over how the other one could possibly think they were right. she thought I was crazy. I thought she was crazy. and so life continued with this argument frequently popping up. neither of us ever winning the debate.

of course, as we grew older, the conflict slowly slipped into distant memory, and we would laugh about it together. she grew more practical and I… well… why on earth do I sit clutching this memory with tears in my eyes wishing that life was still that simple? that I could merely pretend the bad things away like my sister once had?

probably because I didn't handle something right. and I don’t want to face the consequences. I want to pretend everything back to how it was before I messed up.

a picture of my wild-haired, bleach blonde, eight-year-old self  pops into my head and gives me a look that says, “come back to reality. come back to earth.” I feel like my sister must have felt all those years ago. I want to fold my arms, stick out my lip, and say “make me!”.

but the truth is, there are consequences for things that we do or say. we can throw a tantrum and kick and scream, but eventually we’ll have to get up off the floor and deal with the problem. we can cry (and trust me, I do), but ultimately, we have to suck it up and handle things the way Christ would handle them. we can try to pretend them away, but they are still there.

with those thoughts in mind, I stare dismally at my "childhood memories box", with lauren’s “pretend that didn’t happen” ringing in my ears, and I know that I can't just pretend the hard things in life away.

but as one streak of lightening brightens the whole darkened sky in a midnight storm, so something flashes through my mind and makes the sadness fade. I remember that although God has not made it so that we can press the “oops. can I please undo that?” button, He has provided us with forgiveness and healing. and forgiveness and healing, while sometimes painful, are also much more satisfactory than living in denial of something.

so. I guess I’ll tuck my childhood memories box back into my mind again for awhile, and try to handle things in a God honoring way. in a mature way.

yeah, growing up is hard.

it probably gets harder.

I’ll most likely look back in a few years and think, “man, I wish I could go back to when I was seventeen and things were so much simpler.”

but I’m not going to pretend like I’m not growing up.

from now on, I’m going to know that with God, all hard situations can heal. forgiveness can be given and received. friendships can be restored. mountains can be moved.

all things are possible with Him. especially growing up.

love,
muffin