When were the moments you’ve felt your childhood slip away?
Was it one day in middle school when you realized you wouldn’t grow tall enough to be a professional basketball player? Or was it senior year of high school when you learned that being a veterinarian and taking care of animals required more schooling than you thought?
Maybe you’ve experienced more of these moments in college than I have. The day you realize you’re in charge of making your class schedule and getting all the credit hours you need to graduate on time is intense. Or maybe the day you start looking for housing after college and realize how expensive everything is?
Sometimes we don’t experience our childhood slipping away through one big life-altering revelation, but rather in the slow breaking down of childhood dreams and beliefs. I struggle with calling these dreams fantasies because it feels like an insult to the incredible perceptiveness that we are capable of as children. Yet the way we look at the world is primarily shaped by what is essential to us, usually revolving around the support we receive from our family.
One of the most secure structures in my life has always been my family. I’ve been incredibly blessed with many little siblings I adore and two wonderful parents. Yet I distinctly remember when my parents became more human to me and not perfect individuals. When I was a kid, my parents seemed invincible. They could do no wrong. They were incredibly wise, always knowing the right things to say to encourage me and always knowing when to push me harder. They also had the uncanny ability to know when I was lying to them.
Though the moments when my family members became less than perfect hurt, they were necessary growing pains. It was good to allow my perception of my family to mature as I got older because it slowly pointed me back to where my security is meant to rest, and that is with the Lord.
Being at college and learning about family feuds and fights from a distance is not fun. Sometimes I’m frozen in helplessness, not knowing what to do or say to help family members who are struggling. This uselessness can feel crippling as the oldest sibling. I’m used to being the helper. It’s rough realizing that my family is filled with broken individuals and that I can’t hold all the pieces together. Yet our humanness magnifies God’s glory and reminds us why we need him, and I’m thankful that my family shows me this every day, in both the good and the bad.
Author T.S. Elliot said, in Tradition and Individual Talent, “The difference between the present and the past is that the consciousness present is an awareness of the past in a way and to an extent which the past’s awareness of itself cannot show.”
Though it felt redundant at first, it comforted me as I thought about being gullible and naïve as a child.
Becoming more aware of reality and letting go of childhood dreams and ideals is a natural part of growing into adulthood. This fact is not a free pass for cynicism but rather an encouragement to embrace the beauty and the broken things in life through the lens of our faith. Family units are filled with broken pieces that need to be redeemed with unconditional love. Our relationship with the Lord should push us to do this redemptive work. It should remind us that our God’s love does not change like “shifting shadows” (James 1:7). When our childhood begins to fade and the familiar things of our younger years lose their luster, let us be directed back to our Creator, who gives us peace and the ability to love redemptively.
