growing pains
I remember how it felt as a kid. The achy legs that kept me awake at night. I’d call out for my parents, moaning about the pain.
“They’re growing pains,” my dad would say, pulling the covers up and around me tight. “You’re just getting taller, that’s all.”
I’d toss and turn before fitfully falling asleep, skeptical of his reassurance and convinced that I wasn’t growing. Wasn’t I falling apart?
With my child mind, I couldn’t see a taller, older version of myself. I didn’t know what she looked like, or how she walked or talked. Believing in her was like believing in a ghost hovering just outside my room, rattling my door and making herself known, keeping me up at night.
Who was she?
It’s easy to play pretend when it comes to growing up. As a kid, I had big plans and impossible dreams, swirling like a kaleidoscope as I fell asleep each night. “Someday I’ll be a mom! And a doctor or a ballerina. Or maybe an artist or an author who figure skates at the Olympics on the side.”
But who was that grown-up girl in those visions? Who was that version of me on the other side of the growing pains, that specter on the other side of the door? I didn’t know her yet.
I see her in the mirror now, that impossible woman who seemed so unreachable when I was nine. She’s taller than I thought she’d be. Braver and kinder too. She may not be a figure-skating doctor/artist/ballerina, but she’s the mother of three spunky girls and writes books for a living, so I think my nine-year-old self would be pretty pleased. But this woman in the mirror, she’s not done growing yet.
Far from it.
I’ve been feeling that same achy feeling lately. A new kind of growing pain that keeps me up at night. I feel the strain of finding flexibility as I outgrow old wounds, shedding layers that no longer serve me, leaving them faded and worn on the floor at my feet. Who is that woman on the other side of these growing pains? The one who isn’t scared of the things I’m afraid of. The one who feels more settled inside her skin and who cares less about what people think. The one who is bolder in her bravery and less selfish in her kindness.
Who is she, this woman who hovers just on the edge of my periphery? When will I get to know her?
I like to imagine that when God looks at me, He sees every version of me all at once. He watches nine-year-old Nicole going through a growth spurt while simultaneously caring for thirty-three-year-old Nicole while she stretches past another comfort zone. And on and on and on. Countless versions of me, each one mid-transformation. I think that’s how He sees each of you, too. We are eternally progressing. We are always growing and changing.
This process is usually uncomfortable. It might even hurt a little. Or a lot. But our God is a God of transformation, and He relishes every single stage because He knows how it all turns out in the end. He’s already met the next woman in the mirror.
And He adores her.
Can’t you see Him sitting on the edge of your bed, pulling the covers up to your chin as you work your way through yet another change? “They’re just growing pains,” He says with a smile. “You’re just growing closer to Me, that’s all. Trust Me. Trust the process.”
Keep growing.
