Surely you've watched a baby learn to walk. I know when mine were learning, there was such anticipation in that first real unassisted step. There were usually falls and maybe even tears. I watched the attempts and the falls, never really that far away. My baby might not have known I was close at hand, but I was. I would be there to compfort the tears, then I would encourage further attempts. I knew that the walking was going to happen sooner or later. I didn't cause the falls, but I knew that they just had to happen and were just part of the learning process. I could have saved my baby from those falls and tears by avoiding the process all together. Never fall, never cry, and never learn to walk. I don't think my grown children would have appreciated that though. I would bet they're glad, even grateful that I let them learn this new skill of walking. There's something we know, as the parent, that the child doesn't understand. We see a much broader picture and know that some things just have to happen in order to learn a new skill. There's something the child will eventually understand when looking back. They learn that the process was necessary to move on to the next great thing to learn.
Then there's the growing pains. If you've ever sat up with a child crying in the night from leg pains, you'll know what I'm talking about here. Maybe you can ease them a little with leg rubs or medicine, but not always. And the name, "growing pains", come on--that is truely just a cop out, right? Just something to call them, because we really don't know. Well, that is what I thought then. Working in the medical profession, I've learned something about growing pains since those long nights with the crying child. The name is real, it is an accepted diagnosis in the world of medical coding. It is described as pains occurring in the limbs as a result of growth spurts, associated with the ligaments and connective tissue holding the bones to each other. So there you have it, and would the adult who experienced growing pains as a child exchange their grown body for no pain? I would venture to say no. Interesting what we can appreciate in retrospect.
So what is this story really about? Okay, I'm getting to it. Life is all about learning and growing. What if this life is filled with all kinds of growing opportunities, even growing pains. We might call them trials in life, real and painful. We might not understand them. We might just hope they go away. If we believe in a God, we might wonder why He would allow those trials to happen to us. We might even wonder why He would cause them to happen and question what we did to deserve them. What if God is really our heavenly parent, watching over us, there to comfort us and pick us up and encourage us to keep trying. We may not even know just how close this heavenly parent really is. As the young child in this learning process, we don't see the final outcome, we just experience the pain at the moment and don't understand. We certainly don't know or understand just what it is that will be learned. We don't know how all the pieces fit together and work together, like learning to walk before you can run, or ride a bike. Or how the connective tissue holding the bones together needs to stretch in order to have a strong upright adult stature. We just feel the pain.
I'm no different than any of you. I have trials in life, we all do, and sometimes they are just plain painful. Sometimes, like the child in the night, I just don't understand when the pain will go away. But I've learned something. It's very close to my heart and I want to share it with you. I do know that I have a Heavenly Father watching over me, every day. I know that He is there through every pain. I know that He did not cause the pain, but there is growth happening and He is allowing me to go through the learning process. As I have learned these things, something marvelous has happened. I have learned to love my Heavenly Father. I am learning to trust Him. In the midst of pain, I have felt comfort and love from Him unlike anything I have ever felt before. I would not have experienced that without going through trial and I would not trade this knowledge for anything. My trials in life will surely continue, as that is what this life is all about. However, they have brought me to this point in my learning and for that, I am truely grateful.
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