A Funny Thing Happened While My Children Grew Up

I'm not sure how it happened, but while my children grew up I seem to have grown up, too. Somewhere between the "playing pattycake" with my infant son's hands, teaching him to drive donuts in a parking lot before he received his learner's permit, and going over his budget with him before he moved into his own apartment, I grew up.

I remember believing the lie that when I turned 20, I was almost too old to get married, and that I needed to get started in my life. I remember arrogantly telling my parents that I knew everything I needed to make informed decisions: when to get married, when to drop out of college because getting a degree wasn't going to affect my career, how to pick life-long friends, and what to do when problems arise.

Looking back, I can see the love my parents had for me in their eyes. They conversed rationally with me as I emotionally errupted on every point with them. I was determined and headstrong. I believed the lie that I knew what was best for me, and they were trying to hold me back from happiness.

In The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren explains that "Spiritual growth is the process of replacing lies with truth." Over the past twenty-five plus years, I've experienced the pain of many of the lies I believed, but I've also experienced some unchanging truths that carried me through the brokenness and hardships. The lies were replaced with the truth: God's Truth. Sixty-six books worth of truth - the Bible. And the reality that I definitely didn't know enough then, and still don't know enough now on how to guide my life without God's Truth from the Bible has tamed my arrogance.

Maybe being a grown up means accepting that I am forever a child in the eyes of God, and that I've never had to make my own decisions without Him. He's always listened, even when I'm so emotional I'm more like a volcano than a child. He's always cared about the tiniest consequences for my arrogance, stubbornness, and self-misdirection. He's been calmly filling my heart with the Truths of His Love, His Character and even His Purpose for me while I've been filling my head with lies and misinformation. He's the only one who knows what's best for me.

I now look at my sons with great love and patience. Just like my parents did to me. Just like God does for me with every day. Maybe now, I am a grown-up.