"Is it sad to grow up?"

It was quiet on our 45-minute drive home from Salem. We’d done a Capitol field trip and visited friends and played hard and the kids were tired, sleepily gazing out the window as we pulled off the freeway and wound around the off-ramp toward our home.  I heard, quietly, in the backseat, Heidi’s little bird-chirp voice:

“Dutch, why do you want to grow up and go have your own home and kids?” (My ears perked up.)

“Because that’s what kids do, Heidi. They have to grow up and then get their own homes and their own kids. But you have to have a wife in order to have kids. Your wife’s the one who gives you the kids.” (Slight cringe as I realize reproductive conversations are in our future.)

“But, I don’t want to go to my own house … (thinking) … I wonder who my wife (thinking) … I wonder who my …”

I interject. “Husband? You wonder who your husband will be?”

“Yeah, I wonder who my husband will be.”

I smile. “I don’t know Heidi. We’ll find out when you’re older.” She frowns, then lights up with an idea.

“I want Daddy to be my husband!” Beams.

Dutch is quick: “Daddy can’t be your husband, Heidi!” Her face falls.

“Babygirl, I remember when I was little, I wanted my daddy to be my husband. But then when you grow up you stop wanting that and you find your real husband. It changes when you grow up.”

Her face is so serious. She’s quiet then,

“Mommy, is it sad to grow up?”

Emotion floods the car. At that moment I am sitting on my Daddy’s lap, in the big LazyBoy chair, feeling his earlobes in my fingers, snuggling against his chest, telling him I want him to be my husband. He’s laughing and telling me I won’t want that when I grow up. I can feel the fuzzy softness of his earlobes in my fingers. Like peaches. I take a deep breath.

“Oh babygirl, it’s happy-sad to grow up. Growing up is great, it’s lots of fun and it’s what God made us to do, so it’s happy. But it’s also kind of sad, because things change so much. So it’s happy-sad. Do you understand?”

She nods.

A couple days later a good friend and I had a hard conversation. Because we never “arrive,” we’re always growing up, aren’t we? We, the Body of Christ, are always growing up spiritually. And every time we move forward, taking maturing steps of understanding, conflict, humility, grace, seeking to understand and striving for unity, whenever we move forward in this spiritual growing-up process, it’s happy-sad. Why?

Because in order to grow up, we do have to lose something. Just like we have to lose our pretend idea of marrying our daddies, we have to lose our pretend ideas of what community is, what love is. God gently strips away our childish ideas and deepens us, strengthens us, matures us.

The truth is: I kind of like being a baby. 

I hate conflict. I hate that jittery feeling it gives me inside. How it makes that fear of rejection boil up to the surface.

But I can’t marry my dad. Right?

And as we grow together, as Christ’s family, we give each other grace for the growing pains.  For the happy-sad feelings of growing up.  I’m grateful to be surrounded by a community of people growing up together in Christ.

We walk through the happy-sad together. And together we grow up and prepare to be with our real Husband, forever.

~

How are you experiencing the happy-sad of growing up today? How can you embrace those growing alongside you? Thanks for growing with me, and thanks for reading.