Growing Up by Barry Hughes

As the weeks and miles roll by, I seem to come across more and more signs that things are happening in these houses I pass. The random piles of stuff placed at the curbs reveal that in these days of social distancing, online school and staying at home, kids are still growing up! Outgrown three wheelers no doubt replaced by a bicycle. Little furniture, picture books and all types of toys give silent witness to the fact that families are cleaning out and letting go of things that belong to an earlier time but are no longer useful today. Perhaps these items were simply outgrown. Perhaps they were loved, worn out and broken down like the Velveteen Rabbit. Perhaps they just don’t meet anyone’s need anymore.

One thing I have learned about life is that none of us are completely finished growing up. As I walked these streets, I have received a strange and unexpected gift. I have realized that there are some areas in my life in which I need to “clean out” and “let go” of some things that are no longer useful today.

What ways of relating to others in my life have ceased to be healthy and fulfilling? Why wouldn’t I trade trade them in on ways that fit who I am and where I am today? What habits and behaviors do I repeat over and over even though they long ago stopped meeting my needs and the needs of those I love? What long-held guilt or shame have I dragged along through my life that needs to be left at the curb so that I might continue to “grow up” with a lighter load?

That is one of the gifts of growing up, we are expected to let go of some things, to leave them behind and to take up new things that fit who we are and who we are becoming. As the powerful words on the spiritual gift of love proclaim: “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult I put away childish things.” We are being called ever forward. We are always “growing up”.

I recall from both years past and recent days that growing up can be hard and scary and intimidating. But if we know we are deeply loved, if we know we are accepted, we can make the leap and take the risk. Who might I empower through love to make such a change? All I know is that it sure feels good to put on a life that fits us today.

Peace.