Growing Pains

Happy New Year!

I have to admit that today I am so tired!  I didn’t go to bed until 2:00am last night and then my poor Little Princess woke up 3 times with growing pains.  I went to her room and rubbed her legs as she cried, “Mommy, I have an ouchy!” 

It broke my heart.

I rubbed her legs until she fell back asleep, wishing the whole time that I could take her pain away from her.

I remember my Mother rubbing my aching legs in the middle of the night as I woke up with growing pains.  Somehow her touch lessened the pain for me.  I hope that my touch can help take the edge off of my children’s pain.

I was thinking last night while rubbing her growing little legs, that there are different types of growing pains. 

The physical growing pains that wake up little children in the middle of the night as their bodies grow.

And the mental.  The emotional maturing of a person as they grow through different phases of childhood, teen years, and the many stages of adulthood. 

Most times we grow subconsciously, unaware of the subtle changes taking place in our lives. 

Other times the change is  sharp, obvious, amazing, and sometimes… painful. 

Although when in the midst of the painful phases of change, we wish that we could “sleep” through it, I’ve come to realize that we learn the most from the pain.  We learn to sympathize with others going through their own growing pains.  And although we can’t take that experience away from them, we can let them lean on our shoulders, our own experience and comfort them with the knowledge that “this too will pass”.  And they can emerge on the other end stronger and taller than before. 

I’ve come to believe that every experience in life matters.  The good, and the bad.  It’s what we choose to make of the experience that determines the final change that takes place in our lives.

Am I going to let the growing pains of life bring me down?  No.  I may cry a little while walking through them, but all the while I have faith that the Lord won’t ever give me any trial that I can’t handle.  He knows me better than I know myself.  And I have faith that He will rub my legs while I live through my growing pains.

And I’ll wake up a better person than before.