I Don't Have to Wait to Grow Up

It is starting to feel like I'm really blowing out a lot of candles.

On Friday, March 9^th 2018, I turned seventeen. Even though I don’t like The Sound of Music, I felt like it was important to watch that “sixteen-seventeen” thing while I was still sixteen… but since I don’t like it I procrastinated until the two days before my birthday! Turning seventeen is bittersweet because the character that I am most like in my book is still sixteen, so I feel like I’m leaving part of myself in the book and growing up outside of it, but I guess that’s why she gets older in the next book.

Now, turning seventeen also means that I have only one year left before I am legally an adult. That is partially sad. I mean, when I’m eighteen, people expect you to get a move on with your life! Go to college, start your career, get married have kids, stop, spoil grandkids and then die. Well, maybe not all while I’m 18. Actually, that is the topic of this post.

When people ask me, what are you going to do when you grow up (or go to college for, or do after college, or high school or whatever [it’s easier to say grow up]), I guess read books is not a valid answer (unless I become an editor…). Thankfully, what I want to do is write. Which, I am doing right now so really, I don’t have to wait until I grow up to do or become what I want.

I don’t think that we young people should think that we have to spend boatloads of money on education or find “The One” or “The Thing” before we can become who we want to be. Now, if you want to be a doctor, of course you have to go to college, but really, after you get your job and degree, is that what makes you what you are? Of course, you are given the title doctor only after you’ve earned it, just how I am not an author until I’ve published, but do I have this metamorphosis the moment I get my degree or accomplish my goal? No. No goal reached can ever be your identity. In my true self, I am a dreamer, word-smith and storyteller. I don’t have to get a college degree to be those, and have those things be me. Now, I should think about polishing my skills and working hard, publishing, etc. These things are the things that will help me help others and glorify God. As of right now, however, I’m writing the books I want to publish, and therefore, I’m doing what I want to do when I grow up. That is a really wonderful thought. God makes us who we are, gives us dreams, and more importantly has plans for us.

Now, what if you are dreaming of being a mentor, mother or missionary. Perhaps God hasn’t brought a person desperate for wisdom, a husband and baby or the plane ticket to Africa, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be fulfilled now. If he’s given you the desire to teach someone, then start by changing the topic from Pinterest with your friend to things of God. If you can’t have a family of your own right now, then learn from your younger siblings how to be a loving mom, or if you are the youngest or don’t have any siblings, volunteer to work with somebody else’s children in one way or another. If you want to be a missionary, try sharing the gospel right here where you live. I’ve shared the gospel to the guy making my sandwich at Subway, handed him a tract, and then walked away, and with so many people buzzing around us every day, there’s plenty of opportunities for even short and sweet messages like that. There is never one way to do what you were born to do. If you want to sing, then start at church, singing to bless others. You don’t have to wait to grow up to do what you dream. An author doesn’t become an author in one day, they take months and years to write their books that make them authors. So, my point today, is begin living out your calling and purpose right now. Maybe you’re just practicing at this point, but one day, God might have a reason for all that preparation. Don’t let what the world expects you to do be your limitations. 1 Timothy 4:12-16 says “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.” That passage should put the wind in the sails of every young person who seeks to glorify God! I believe this says that even though we are young, we shouldn’t let that prevent us from devoting ourselves to the gifts that God has given us. Practice them, immerse ourselves in them. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching (make sure we don’t grow proud, or stray from our teaching, keep a grip on it and always live what we teach). Persist (which means don’t give up). One thing I’ve learned especially in these last years, has been that I am not the average teen girl. I don’t live up to the world’s expectations. I fully plan to far exceed what any college professor, trainer, coach or peer could expect of me. My life goal is to glorify God and to let his will run my life. If I do things differently and am not raving about the things they rave about, maybe it’s because I am on a different course, and am walking a different road. There are other roads that are far less traveled, but maybe these roads are the ones that will lead to something real and of true worth. I know they do because God’s will is that I glorify him, and that is what mankind was created for. I don’t have to get a college degree or perfect lip color to do that.

God calls us to different ways of glorifying him. He wants some to bear children and teach them about him, and he wants some to deliver children, and even save the child and mother’s life. If he didn’t have these different plans, then perhaps I wouldn’t be alive, and perhaps some of us wouldn’t have mothers or siblings. Don’t wait to be 20 something to glorify God and seek his will, start now, practice, immerse, keep a close watch on yourself and your teaching (or rather his teaching), don’t neglect your gift and calling. Persist.

What about you? How are you glorifying God? What is your gift?