Where do I begin....in retrospect of the past months or where I'm at today? both. always. (also my motto with dessert). Through a series of events yesterday and today I've realized that the "fog" of the last few months have been a part of working out Paul's words to the Corinthians about "putting childish ways behind them" (1 Cor. 13:11). In the midst of it, I felt like a phony, an ape, an act. In hindsight I can see that it was just the uncomfortable process of sanctification, akin to those lovely "early teen years" where everyone is graceful, confident, put together...er, wait?!......you get the idea. But in this case it was the "adolscence" of my faith and growing in the ways I live out my walk with Jesus. Growing up in the church is a tremendous blessing, I don't take it for granted...but it also makes it easy to get into a rut of "THIS is how my faith looks", especially emotionally-charged spiritual experiences from trips to concerts. Part of this "growing up spiritually" is due to biological growth, when I was a teen I reasoned like a teen- with my amygdala, the emotional processing part of our brains that make decisions and decode events based on emotions. This isn't bad, it's biological, and those experiences, seasons, lessons are no less applicable or monumental because they are emotionally based...I just can't expect them to define my faith in the same way as they did in my teens. Thanks be to God that we grow in change in life. I can see that much of the fog was a result of many things, including the fact that I'm "not a child" and that my faith and my reasoning shouldn't and wont be like it was. I've grown and now, my trusty psychological education reminds me, have a developed prefontal cortex which specializes in reasoning. It makes sense that the shift would be awkward and painful, much like those middle school years. They are perspective changing, monumental, and good. Like the adolescent years, they are purposeful and productive ; the braces give way to a beautiful smile and the awkward limbs are grown into. Life goes on.
Yesterday was a doozy of a morning commute; I left 5 minutes late, hit the raising of two bridges, struggled to find parking, and definitely let my "inner two year old" escape in full out "supermarket tantrum" mode as I idled in my car. I blamed the God who unceasingly blesses me. It was a hot-mess resulting in humility as I quieted and was reminded that "I am loved with an everlasting love, even in THIS moment of rebellion and anger". That stunned and encouraged me. One of the things I am most grateful about the last season is that it has fostered a renewed passion for the Gospel, for what I've been saved from and saved to. An un-earned, beautiful inheritance, an everlasting hope. I'm not naiive to say that I wont experience similar seasons to come, I know this is not the peak, it's a vantage point, Lord willing, somewhere in the middle of my earthly life. Another aspect, one that piqued my thoughts toward the brain development and how that changes the particulars of how my daily walk looks was Colton Dixon's performance of Lifehouse's "Everything". Listen to it Here He boldly worshiped his heart out in front of America and as I joined in at home the thought crossed my mind "I want to worship like that--with that transparency and passion, again" and then led to the realization that I CAN and do worship that way--it just looks different now. Expressed through avenues like this blog and in conversations over coffee, as I teach Sunday school, and occasionally in unbridled, belted out song. It's not less, not better, just different. I'm growing, God is good. and life is beautiful.
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