- While teenagers have a physical capacity to carry out decisions that are dumb, crazy, obnoxious, harmful, and otherwise ill-advised, they often have no matching mental capacity to filter through the wisdom of those decisions. Consequences don't quite figure into their planning. The lack of fully developed thinky-thinky parts in the brain is a serious issue! They are a bit like toddlers but instead of having repeated, earnest warnings about not touching the stove ignored, it is repeated warnings about not using the stove to see what is flammable that are ignored.
- Teenagers smell. At least the middle school boys do. They have not learned that doing nothing and/or dousing oneself with Axe body spray are not appropriate solutions to body odor. Soap and regular showers young men! Everyday!
It should also be noted that being a teenager wasn't such a great thing for me. Apart from having personally survived the reality described above, I was also exceptional at being awkward. Most kids have an awkward stage. Usually lasts a year or so. Mine seems to have lingered for the better part of a decade. A decade isn't even that much of an exaggeration! I can pull out at least 6 school pictures that are quite regrettable/hilarious that confirm the length of my awkward stage.
Speaking of pictures, most of those taken of me during this extended awkward stage reveal a bespectacled, buck-toothed, gangley young man quite unaware of his appearance. Also, for some reason when I tried to smile nice for pictures I ended up looking like I was sniffing a fart. My parents loved me dearly but apparently not enough to protect me from my own fashion sense, choice in glasses, or hair style.
With these kinds of attitudes towards teenagers and my own harrowing experiences being tough to stomach, this last weekend spent with teenagers left me very thankful for one thing: change! Fittingly, the teaching theme for the retreat was 'transformation.' It provided a great opportunity for me to reflect on change in my own life.
It is very easy to look back to my teenage years and see the changes in my life. Apart from the stupid impulsiveness I often indulged and the disconcerting appearance I rocked, I can look at those years and see selfishness, pride, anxiety, pettiness, anger and a host of other behaviors and attitudes that no longer play such a large part in my life.
While it would be wonderful to say all of those things have left me forever we all know that those things have a way of following us into adulthood. Thankfully, I can clearly see that in comparison to those years I am now more and more marked by things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and self-control. Not that I can take credit for the change, but it is a welcome change nonetheless.
Comparing my current self to my middle/high school self provided a sharp contrast and one that is easy to distance myself from. It got me thinking about how far back I would have to look to continue to really notice change. What was I like in college? During my first year of marriage? When my first daughter was born? What about last year? Last month? Am I still allowing myself to be transformed?
Everyone grows and changes in middle school and high school but I can look around and see plenty of people who stopped growing or changing shortly thereafter. The same attitudes, behaviors, and character (or lack thereof) that marked their lives a decade ago are still the same. There is no greater measure of virtue, kindness, etc. and apart from some intellectual knowledge they really haven't changed otherwise. They wax nostalgic over high school or college as if they and their lives were better then. I hope that's not true of me.
As I approach that part of life that falls in between the beginning and end (I never want to talk about myself being middle aged!) I hope that I can keep looking back and seeing growth and transformation in my heart and mind. I don't want to have to look back ten or twenty or thirty years to see that I have grown in character, in faith, or in .godliness. I desire to be someone who continues to grow as a person but as I get older I find that it doesn't come so quickly and easily.
I plan to spend some time this week not just looking back to see how I've changed but looking forward to see how I can continue to be a person who is growing. While I've finally figured out the weight-gaining kind of growth that I was literally unable to accomplish in middle school, I hope I can also figure out how to be intentional about growing in character. I don't just want my circumstances to change which is what a lot of people mistake for personal change. I actually want my heart and mind and attitudes and character improve and grow and change. As a Christian, I want more and more to reflect the One whose name I bear and whose sacrifice I celebrate. The past is too easy a measuring stick to go by. Instead I want to look to God and His Word to know what my future growth needs to look like.
How about you? Are you still growing? What habits, attitudes, or experiences have you built in your life to keep growing? Do you have accountability from trusted loved ones for your growth? What measuring stick do you use?
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