Growing Pains.

There was a time in my life when everything seemed surreal; it was a time of great tragedy and unbearable disappointment. Life had charged my father with disarming bliss of rebirth and well... everyone we knew wished us happy future endeavors and pledged their undying support. Seated uncomfortably on the couch and confused, I hankered to know why all my teachers in school came, one after the other, and shook my mother's hand. She was buried in uncontrollable sobbing and as much as I discerned the raw agony there, there was little or nothing I could do. At the time, I knew only one thing; there were broken pieces of my father laying in a cold mysterious place on stiff-like metal floors. That was the first one for the books. It was the opening life had been waiting for to start teaching me it's rewarding lessons. Everything was about to change, and I was unprepared, little, mostly ignorant of my current status and there was nothing beguiling about it. It was harsh, and this unwitting life change press-ganged my peaceful life into early darkness and chaos.

I've heard people nag about how God disappointed them or how God did not help them. I used to be one of those people. I lived in a perfect, cruise-control world and I had everything I wanted handed to me without question. I basked in the love of my father and even though I believed in God, He didn't matter to me then like He does now. The straight truth is that God doesn't disappoint. There is no hidden clause or secret code; He doesn't lie and He doesn't disappoint. When all our attempts at glory are frustrated by life's high winds, the fact that God doesn't disappoint holds. None of the terrible happenings in your life can change that; however terrible they maybe, you have to hew suffocating thoughts like that from your mind. Aint you tired of nagging? In my opinion, people, even Christians, suffer tirelessly to paint God's portrait for their lives when in actuality they should "suffer innocently" and let him paint His portrait. First of all, just because you have a dream carved somewhere in the corners of your brain doesn't necessarily mean you will see its fruition in your time. And it doesn't mean it's what God has for you. Be careful of thinking your personal dream as Gods'. Understand that until you stop trying to do everything on your own your growing pains doesn't teach much.

Growing pains are a necessity for maturity. Allow me to explain. The divorce rate for first-time marriages is a little over 50% this doesn't apply to Islamic countries. For second-time marriages, it's a little over 60% and for third time marriages, a little over 70%. The more pain you experience, the less you feel hurt. Your body becomes numb to the pain and even if you get married the fourth time, you bear traces and scars of past experiences. This means that to break up the fourth, it'll take something stronger than what killed the first, second, and third. It's spot-on that experience is the best teacher but when experience becomes your status quo, it become dangerous. The harvest is past, yet somehow your baskets are empty. The summer has ended and you are still gagged by your relentless need for control. Another fact: You can't control everything so let go already. The time has come and now is that you will destroy your selfish compound of vague desires and firm decisions. If you don't, all they'll do is wreak havoc and trust me, when I say you don't want that.

Don't mistake your blindness for godly vision and godly vision for blindness. No...don't do it. And before you hum in disagreement, take a minute to reflect on why you are pushing so hard for something God already gave you. What picture are you looking at? Are you painting your own mediocre portrait or is God painting a masterpiece out of your life. You have nothing to give God that didn't first come from Him; every good and perfect gift comes from Him. Stop the meager life, because He saved you to live life over and beyond. A life filled with purpose and goodness. Sometimes you don't even see a challenge until you find yourself smack right in the middle of the storm. I will end with this. Every relationship has its ups and downs. If there were no ups, the downs wouldn't have a hint of hardship. Hardships reveal our nature, and it refines us but by choice. Growing is a natural order but maturity is by choice. Sometimes, God nudges us into situations and challenges for our own benefit. Because the challenges doesn't change who He is, but it changes who we are and how we see Him. He does this so that we can picture a glimpse of what He sees and has for us. God takes us through the hurdles of life so that we embrace his thoughts and plans for us. We always think we have it figured out with our run-of-the-mill plans. As miserable as they are, our minds seem to be crowded with subtle deceptions that they are the best we could ever want for ourselves. God paints masterpieces and his portraits are for blind eyes. Eyes that are blind to self glorification and personal gain.

Before you start thinking you are the boss of you, know that you are holding yourself to unexceptional standards. The one thing everyone longs for in the depths of their soul is fulfillment. Because that's just about the one way to endless joy and happiness. Fulfillment comes from nowhere but following the steps of the father. Knowing Him and letting that knowledge consummate you. Don't forget; you are the crescendo of creation and a masterpiece in the making