The Groaning Within Us

Growing pains.

It’s that awkward tension between who you were and who you might be.  The bitterness of realizing that aren’t what you could be, but don’t know how to get there.  That painful in-between, where nothing is really certain.

It seems so unnecessary, but it is unavoidable.  It throws us out of comfort, into searching.  It leads us to the Lord, and it opens us to possibility.  But it isn’t easy.  And the way it hurts, well… it’s different for each of us.

 

I remember when my feet hurt so badly during elementary school.  I hated P.E., I didn’t run at recess, and my dance lessons weren’t much fun.  Mom thought it was my shoes, then that I had inherited my dad’s flat feet.  I’m sure I whined, but I blame it on the shooting pain that ran up the backs of my legs when I walked.

Nothing we tried seemed to work, so we finally went to the doctor.  He took some x-rays.  We waited.  He brought the scans in and tucked them up on that little light box in the examination room.  “Growing pains,” he said. “The plates of your heels are growing, your legs are growing, and they’re hitting each other because there’s not enough room.” He smiled. “They will get better on their own, but it might take a little while.”

I had to learn to cope.  I got some new shoes, put little heel inserts in them, took painkillers, and just… waited.  Waited until I grew.

 

I still feel that pain.  It’s not in my heels anymore, but somewhere deep within, aching.  Maybe it’s my heart.  Maybe there aren’t words to describe what it is.  But the clashing and the grinding is real and present… because I feel the throbbing pain.

 

 

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us.  Rom 8:18