When I Grow Up

You know how children want to be adults.  They strive to be older, we strive to keep them young.  They want to be a grown-up.  We tell them to enjoy childhood because it is gone before you know it.  You understand this cycle.  Well, I feel like I'm having a child-like moment.  I just want to be all grown up.

This not being idle business is kicking my tail.  I'll do good for a morning, and bad in the afternoon.  I'll have a good day followed by a bad one.  It is two steps forward  and three steps back,  and I just want to be on the other side.  Making myself wake up at 5:00 am was a walk in the park compared to not overly indulging in idleness.  I only had to make the decision to wake up once a day, but staying busy is a choice I am faced with over and over again.  I want it to be a habit to be busy, instead of a chore.  I just want it to be what I do without thinking about it.  I want this lesson to be learned.

I have an aunt by marriage that is the most amazing woman I know.  I really do not think this is an exaggeration.  She is kind, humble, hardworking, loving, well-read, talented, thrifty, and charitable.  She loves her husband in a way that steals my breath and brings tears to my eyes when I catch a glimpse. The bread of idleness is just not in her pantry. Her children, all 4, rise up and call her blessed.  Her grandchildren....all 22....rise up and call her blessed.  Her great-grandchildren...22 with two on the way...rise up and call her blessed once they are old enough to recognize who and what she is.  In short, she is my hero and inspiration, and if she knew I was publicly saying these things about her, I would be in trouble.  I want to be Auntie when I grow up, and I want to be grown up now.

But Auntie didn't start out being the woman she is now.  She was a young newly-wed once upon a time, learning what it was to be a good wife.  She had to learn how to deal with difficult children and busy schedules without a full night's sleep.    She had to fight weariness, sadness, frustration, and pain just like I do.  She had to learn to deal with disappointment in herself and with others.  She wasn't born wise.  But she served God all of her life.  She went through the fires of life, trusting God  for strength, striving to serve Him. Now, she is as refined gold.

So when I chafe because I don't want to be "little" anymore, because I want to be "all grown up", I should remember that the fire refines the gold.  Without one there cannot be the other.  I won't have the wisdom of a lifetime until I have lived a lifetime.  So I should listen to one who has lived the life I am now living, and I should heed my Aunt's advice when she tells me, "Treasure these days, they are gone too quickly."  While it feels like this stage of life will last forever, just like my childhood, it will fly by and there will be no going back.  While it feels like I will never get this lesson pounded into my stubborn and thick head, I must take a deep breath, trust God to give me strength, and try again.  If I do that for many, many years, one day my children might rise up and call me blessed.

My hero and her fella!

KJV Proverbs 31:30  "Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised."