"Growing Pains" - With all of the growing pain and none of the Kirk Cameron and Alan Thicke

As I am relatively young (22nd birthday just over the horizon), I can still faintly recall the nights I would lay in bed and feel the aches of my bones as they stretched and groaned into what is now a frightening stature of a mighty 6'3''. I could remember wondering why I hurt at night. I had not fallen from a high place onto some leg snapping bone marrow spilling ledge many feet below. I had not received any massive blows to the shins by an angry Louisville Slugger wielding mob of ruffians and scalawags. My mom just used to tell me that I was a growing boy and I was going through growing pains. Bum deal!

Well eventually I stopped growing. And that was when I started running into pain that was far more unwelcome. And I didn't need my mom to tell me where it came from. Since I moved to Minneapolis over a year ago on Easter Sunday, I found myself wearing an engagement ring (Guys usually don't I guess, but I did). And now, well that finger is bare, and the sun has all but filled in the ghostly white skin that hid beneath my silver ring with its Celtic engravings and dark etchings.

I do have a few physical scars from the darker nights, but for the most part, I wear them inside. Its a painful thing to give your heart to someone and watch it trampled. Worse yet, sometimes by my own feet. To make a point and to not get all EMO - all of this pain is complicated and has a stubborn longevity. Its not like the cuts and bruises that followed me inside after a hard days work defending the Free World from make-believe aliens and imminent invasion by the Russians, or daring ascents up mighty pines. No, its that darn grown up pain that I am acquainting myself with as I trudge my way into adulthood.

Having shared that - Praise God for it all. Praise God for His rod. Praise Him for His discipline in my life. Praise Him that I feel His love throughout this season and trial. I know He is my Father because of the scars left by His rod.

To quote a song by Derek Webb-

don't paint my face
i need to see the scars
so i don't forget
the back of my tutor's arm