Mind the Steps

This past fall I walked my daughter into a new school. She's in middle school now. It's a new stage--for her, for my wife, and for me. And it's a new stage for her two younger brothers. They look at her differently now. My wife and I see her differently also. I still haven't adjusted to the previous changes and transitions as she's grown up. I'm still wishing she were in a stroller.

We can't stop the turning of days or the physical, mental, and emotional growth and change we all experience. Such growth and change is a necessary part of life. You stop growing and changing, and you stop living. 

Growth and change never affect just one person. Growth and change affect all those who are in relationship with someone. Growth and change are community experiences. No one ever "goes it alone." 

If I experience a change in circumstances, for example, I may actually act differently. I might see myself in a new way. But those in my closest circles will see me in a new way, too. They will be affected by how I might behave differently. And they might act differently toward me. What experiences I think change only me probably changes things them, too. 

Life's changes are often most significantly felt in the home and within the family. This is the place where there is most potential for us to respond to growth and change in subtle ways without thinking twice about it--ways that really affect all those around us. The home is also the place where there is most potential to intentionally respond to growth and change, especially in ways that try to find God's presence in the midst of it all.

How do you navigate growth and change? Each new change, each new stage in life demands that we address it on its own terms. Here are a couple ways of responding that have been true, I think, of many people:

We've All Been There....

I've sometimes been prone to deal with changes and transitions from my adult perspective, from the hindsight of my experience with similar changes. Maybe you have too. It's easy to say in the midst of growth and change, "You'll be ok. It'll be fine, you'll see." 

But when I do that I'm really just imposing my way of dealing with the new steps in life. I'm really not addressing the specific situation of change as it should be addressed. With most all steps in life, we know someone experiencing change will be fine. We know we will be fine. But it's still a brand new experience for the person going through it. Every experience is new. 

We can sure use what we've been through to share our experience. Sometimes that's exactly what our kids or spouse might want. They want to know we've experienced something like that. They want to know how we dealt with it. But, I don't think it's for answers or advice. It's to know us and grow closer to us, and we to them. 

Jesus became human to be God with us. He did not come to give advice. He did not come so he could let us know from his divine perspective how things will work out. He came to walk with us. As parents and spouses, when life's changes hit, it's an occasion to walk with each other and to grow closer.

We're Just Getting Through...

I often hear the words: "We're just trying to get through." But don't you wonder, get through to what? Practically speaking, because there really is no point where growth and change are not happening, we're really just "getting through" to encounter the next step or the next change. So we're just trying to "get through" life. And then what?

I wonder if when we do this we're modeling and teaching a not-so-good way of doing things. If we approach life's steps and changes with a "just get through" mentality, is this also how we want God to fit in? We just want God to help us through, to give us strength to get through. 

I don't see in the Bible a lot of evidence for God as a God of "getting through." God is a God who is in the present for the present, not for the other side. It makes me wonder: what if we took growth and change as an opportunity to ask how God is present in the moments of change, rather than as the one who will get us through? What if we asked for eyes to see change as an opportunity to experience God's newness at work? 

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God is a God of change. Not that God changes (that's an entirely different discussion), but God made things to change. God made a world full of change. God made us as both beings who change and as agents who bring about change. Even God's call upon us demands change--consider Abraham's story or the disciples Jesus called. The first step in following the call of God is a step of change. If we are to grow toward Christlikeness, then we must change. 

What if each life step, each experience of growth and change in life, were an opportunity to know God better, to understand ourselves better, to grow in relationship with those we love as we experience growth and change together? They're not times to share advice, not experiences or seasons to "get through," but experiences to live in. 

For those of us with kids, each step is new. We may already have walked a similar path, but it was not and will not be their same path. Nor was our path the same as our spouse's. And we may have gone through certain things before, but we may not have done so alongside our husband, wife, or child. Their experience of new moments with us makes it new. 

Here's an idea. Allow your home to be a place--maybe the one place--where life is not something to get through. Consider living in a way that you regularly hit the pause button so that you might soak in growth and change. Why? To listen more to each other and listen to experience God in the midst of change and growth. Rather than approach life steps and changes through the lens of what you've already experienced, try taking each step on its own. Not that we don't learn from previous experiences, but that we let each experience have its own identity and opportunity to experience God's presence together.