the one where i have growing pains.

remember growing pains?

no, not the tv show. well, i guess on second thought, that would be rather applicable. i was thinking more along the lines of the ones you get in your leg as a kid. you would tell your mom, and she would say, “oh, that’s just growing pains.”

as we get older into adolescence and young adulthood, growing pains shift into something else. it becomes about behavior, attitude, and often grows out of an existential crisis. we, as young adults, are going through lots of changes. graduating high school, going to college, graduating college, getting a job, moving home, going back to school, moving out of home, getting married, and many others lead to these growing pains.

i suppose one would say i’m at this point of my life. as i’m getting ready to get married and move out on my own, i’m fairly certain growing pains are happening. the world around us is changing, and we must change to continue moving with it, no matter where it seems the world will take us. we make decisions that aren’t the best, and have to learn to reconcile those broken relationships on our own. we begin to think about finances in a more responsible way. we cry because we’re not sure how we can afford an apartment, yet desperately want the independence that comes with it.  we become completely and utterly responsible for our actions, and are expected to act grown up.

however, i think often people forget that we are all in process. no matter what our age, our shoe size, our life situation, or our mental capability, our personhood is drastically shifting based on what is going on around us. this is similar to the field of process theology. process theologians claim that because god interacts with a changing universe, God is also changeable over the course of time. While the basic characteristics of god stay the safe, god changes and is in process based on the world around.

think about the new testament for a minute. “for god so loved the world…” now compare this to the number of times god condemns and sends lightening strikes down at the humans in the hebrew bible. while i am quite familiar that god also saves god’s people, god also participated in many violent acts in this time period. the god of the hebrew texts is much different from that of the christian scriptures. god is in process just like all of us. 

it’s important that we don’t expect people to be perfect, when we ourselves don’t like that expectation placed on our shoulders. we must remember always that all people are in process — we are sojourners on this crazy road called life, and must always remember that we are all in it together, and for no other reason than we are all trying to navigate our way down this crazy road called life.