Putting Away Childish Things

I've written about this before, but I again return to it tonight.

It's interesting, as we grow, I mean REALLY grow, spiritually, how the things in which we once took comfort are now out of reach.  I use the phrase "out of reach" deliberately.

I feel betrayed.  I feel hurt.  I feel devastated, to a degree and proportion that I don't know quite how to describe.

In times past, when my feelings like this arose, even to a much lesser extent than now, I reached for anger.  Rage.  I "let the beast out", meaning the animal within.  The part of me that was nothing but a mammal, cornered and injured and ready to make you bleed before I inevitably succumbed to your jaws.

Tonight, I felt a special release to return to that.  Not sure how to describe it.  It was like God saying "yeah, you know what, it's been a spectacularly rough 4 months or so.  Go for it.  We'll pick back up tomorrow."  But when I reached for that, when I started down that path, my spirit bore such strong witness against it, that I don't  couldn't get there.

Of course, this is wonderful.  But, if I'm to be completely honest, it also hurts a bit.  We have to be willing to lose that part of ourselves, and it's taken me a good, solid 20 years to accomplish this one, if, in point of fact, I can really claim I'm there.

It's like a part of my youth that is gone, a bit like when you realize that you'll never hang out at the camp ground with the guys talking about girls again, or when you realize that you're doing things to be cute but no one thinks you're cute anymore, or when you want to sit in Mom's lap but you're too big.

I suppose this is what is meant, at least in part, by putting away childish things.  There's a sort of death that happens.  It sounds crazy, but I morn my anger.  I don't need it anymore.  I don't want it anymore.  But part of me, just part of me, still wants to disappear into that blackness for just a while.

Thank you God, for clearly demonstrating to me that I'm not the man today that I have been.  I can't wait to see what the next 20 years brings...