Growing Pains

I think I finally found a summary of my year. Just like every year, I'll write a post which recaps many moments big and small, but yesterday I heard a simple phrase which brought a sort of closure. A synthesis, if you will. 

I was walking a loop around Cool Creek Park - the conveniently-placed nature center directly across from our apartment - with Alex Francis. It's a concrete lap surrounding trees and trails that measures exactly one mile, strangely akin to the loop that borders Taylor U. Despite only living here for six months, I've probably walked close to 70 miles around this park. There are days I've done four to five laps, simply because there's something so healing about the strangely-placed serenity of woods and streams centered directly in the fast-growing suburb of Westfield.

I told Alex of the way Joe and I frequent this park for runs and walks, but lately have found it hard to push ourselves. The park, after all, is quite hilly, and the moment my legs start to hurt, I usually call it quits. Alex shared of similar sentiments. Ever since we retired from sports, it has been pretty easy to just stop pushing ourselves. If there are no pacer tests or fitness assessments looming on the horizon of impending physical agony,  why hurt?

Then, Alex talked about how she felt like she wasn't really going anywhere. Wasn't getting stronger or faster. The workouts were never getting easier. I could relate. I had only put on weight since college, and those added pounds certainly weren't muscle. The words she said next rang like everything I had been feeling for the past twelve months:

"I mean, I know I don't grow unless it hurts..."

There it was. Not only a banner for my  own personal testimony, but also the testimony  of so many  people around me. As I thought about the months of agony while waiting for a job or looking for a house, I thought about how I grew. Grew in dependence on the Lord. Grew in faith. Grew in trust. Grew in patience, in steadfastness, in worship. In seeking. 

I thought about Reyna, whose job search looked similar to mine. I thought about all it taught her - how much she grew.

The same for Lauren - stretched by seemingly endless medical malfunctions. How desperately  she has had to learn to cling to Jesus. Oh how she grew!

I think about Lilly, who moved somewhere new, alone, heart still healing, overcoming disappointment and unmet expectations, from college to college. How the Lord used that. She grew.

Holly and Ian's job search was ruthless. Closed door after closed door, all while finding out they were pregnant, now jobless, and moving. What would their faith be like if things came easy? I thank God for how they grew.

Jeff and Steph looked at nearly forty houses only to be revolving-door rejected. Certainly they are even more thankful for the home the Lord brought them. Without a doubt, without a choice, their faith grew.

There are stories like this in the Bible over and over. Mary, Mary Magdalene, Joseph, Noah, Job, Jonah, Jeremiah...the weeping, fighting, waiting, longing. The desperation, devastation, derailing of plans and destruction of lives. Certainly their faith was stretched thin. But then what happened once it had stretched?

It grew.

I think I'm finally seeing why we GET to rejoice in all kinds of trials. These trials produce character, perseverance, faith, strength, hope. King Jesus was not exempt from the darkest of trials. And by God's gracious glory, mercy, and might, what happened to Jesus will happen to us. We will rise, and survive, and endure. And grow. 

So let it hurt! How much sweeter it is to hurt and wait and weep and fall into the arms of the God of all Comfort than to find our own comfort and not need his arms at all! Better is the agony that leads to abandon and has us desperately pleading for the presence of God than the luxury of life that convinces us we're all good.  Lets rejoice when the hurt comes, as the hurt will grant us room to grow, grow, grow.