Z, my nephew, was asked in school to write about what he wanted to be when he grew up. I held the paper – grey, rough elementary school, big red and blue lined paper that feels gritty against your hands, and read Z’s answer. As always, that kid brought a smile to my face – memories of kindergarten and first grade – innocence and wonder. Z’s answer made my heart sing. I’m going to quote it, misspellings and all, and I hope you get the butterfly kiss feeling, too.
“I wont to be a pelecmon so I can be like my Dad. I wont to pot peple in jail and ried a motrsicle.” Translation (just in case you need it):”I want to be a policeman. So, I can be like my dad. I want to put people in jail and ride a motorcycle.” Now, that my friends, is an amazing commentary on my brother from his 6 year-old. Doesn’t it just make your smile beam bright?
When we’re 5 or 6 years old, that initial question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is so easy to answer: fireman, princess, superhero. Then as 18 approaches when we are deemed old enough to be on our own the answer blurs: the world is too big and too interesting, and the question feels overwhelming. Then we’re asked again (mostly in a very loud voice by a very frustrated, money- drained parent during that awkward fifth year in college), and we still don’t know. When we choose a path and think we’ve finally dispensed with that dreaded question, it’s lobbed at us again worded differently in every job interview by every company (i.e. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?). EVERYONE wants to know what we want to be.
I struggle with this question – a lot – because it gives me pause in two places: what do I want to be, and when am I a grown-up. What do I want to be: well, there are so many things that I want to be and do and see. How do you choose just one? The second part, when am I a grown up, I stutter around. I am not 20 or 30 or even 35 anymore, and I still DO NOT feel like a grown-up.
I have been through some awful, horrible things in my life, all of which have taught me to stretch until I pull apart like taffy instead of shatter like crystal. Have there been times in my life that I pull apart, that I break? Absolutely, and some of which I’ve told you about. But breaking instead of shattering leaves pieces big enough to put back together while allowing for God to gently (Ok, sometimes not so gently.) glue our fragile lives into something more amazing. Pulling apart allows God the room to insert grace, mercy, compassion, hope, forgiveness, peace, etc.. You may have begun life as a china bud vase, but after the survival of cancer, abuse, bankruptcy, divorce, loss of your child, or whatever your own personal tragedy may be, now you’re a china vase capable of holding all the blooms He offers. And this stretching and pulling apart, well, is doesn’t necessarily happen just once. Mostly it happens over and over throughout our entire lives. (Fun, right?) And even with my pulling apart again and again, I still DO NOT FEEL LIKE A GROWN-UP.
Then I considered the term “grown-up” and all its connotations. As grown-ups we are expected to know the right answers to all the questions the world hurls at us. We’re expected to care for ourselves physically, mentally, spiritually. We’re expected to handle devastation and loss with a stiff upper-lip. We’re expected to be “finished.”
Personally, I think that while I mature, while I become the bigger vase, I’m never finished. Does that mean I’m never grown up? Absolutely, because while I may control my finances well, offer sage advice, smile and laugh through tears of remorse and lament, I am always someone’s child. I am always His child, and His job as my Abba is to constantly teach me to be more like Him. I must become less, and He become more. How can this happen unless I come stretch and come apart and allow Him to work inside?
What do I want to do as I continue to grow up? I want to allow Him to lead me to that decision. And sometimes getting there takes me the long, scenic route around. Sometimes I choose things that He would never choose for me, things separate from my natural talents, temperament, and even abilities.
I have limitations that I want to hide and deny, and that denial always proves self-destructive. True story: I got myself embroiled in law school four times before I understood that being a lawyer lies way outside the scope of who God created me to be. I refused to listen to His gentle “No” the first time (and second and third) and by the fourth time, I needed a shovel to the head to get it. My life pulled out from under me. I developed a chronic illness – a status migraine – that keeps me from being able to work at a traditional job at all.
Before my illness, I’d been fortunate enough to work for people and at jobs that I genuinely and generally enjoyed. But, those proved not to be my life assignments either. So, now I try (occasionally successfully) to stop asking “what” because I’m thinking that answer won’t be coming. And then it occurs to me that “what” might be the wrong question entirely. Standing on the “what” pier may make me miss the boat entirely. Maybe I’m not supposed to be on that “what” pier at all. Maybe the train platform to “who” I want to be is the real ticket I should be holding. When I focus on who I want to be, the what generally follows and falls into place.
Like Z, I want to be like my dad. My earthly father is a wonderful man, a gift God bestowed because He loves me. But more than wanting to be like my dad, I want to be like Abba. I want to love like Him, forgive like Him, see like Him. And isn’t that the real point of our lives, our paths, anyway?
What do I want to be when I grow up? I don’t want to be anything other than His: continually stretching, learning, loving. And that is what I wish I had known when I wrote with those big fat pencils on that rough, grey paper all those years ago . That is what I wish I could impart to Z now; but it’s a singular lesson he will have to learn on his own through heartache and triumph, through happiness and despair. I’d save him the pain if I could, but then he wouldn’t have the opportunity to become His, and I’d never steal that from my Little Dude. Z must learn through Love.
The Unexpected Life 