Growing Pains

Virginia won't jump up on the bed. Not can't- she won't.  She has the physical ability to do it. She's even done it before lots of times when she gets all wound up chasing after Gimli. But most of the time, she just doesn't think she can do it. She looks up at us with her sweet, pitiful face and begs us to bail her out and just pick her up. She whimpers and cries, scratches the side of the bed, tugging on my heart strings, her little puppy dog eyes calling to me: "Mommy, pleeeeese pick me up! I need help! I can't do it!" Being the softy I am, this breaks my heart. But she is not a puppy. She is a 2 year old dog who needs to act like a dog and not a puppy. Am I going to pick her up forever? I can't do that for the rest of her life. She needs to learn to jump up herself. So we decided not to help her anymore. If she wants to get on the bed bad enough, she'll learn to take a risk and jump. I'm not going to lie and say this is not hard for me. But it's the best thing for her, so I tell my heart to chill out, and leave her on the floor.

I often pray to God like this. I cry out to him to eliminate my pain, fix my problem immediately, and get mad when He doesn't. I just want the easy way out, but God has something greater for me. God knows that my pain is temporary, but my soul & my relationship with Him is forever. He is in the business of making me holy, more like Him, more trusting of Him, more dependent on Him. I hate it, but sometimes the only way I can learn is for God to withhold what I want so that I can receive that which is so much better: a trusting and loving relationship with Him; seeing His perspective on life, the world, myself, Himself; experiences that God will use in the future for me to be able to encourage others. The process of growing is uncomfortable, painful, and often awkward, but we must go through it to receive these greater rewards.

Our strategy is working. Virginia has started jumping up on the bed by herself more. She still doubts herself sometimes, but she's growing in this area more every day.  I know she doesn't like being told "no", but in the end, it will be worth it when she conquers this challenge. I don't like it when God tells me "no" or "wait" either. But I am so thankful that God is committed to me growing even when I'm not.