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Growing Pains

Unfortunately, everyone has to grow up sometime...
tough as life is, it feels like it can always get more tough.

How does one "grow up" anyway?

And why do people always say that when times are hard?
"Why don't you just grow up?"
Gee, thanks for kicking me while I'm down...

How does being "grown up" help us deal with life's hard questions, or difficult situations?

It hurts to grow. We get more mature the more crud we deal with in our life. Interesting...

The Bible says in Romans 8:28, "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."
An interesting plan.

When life gets tough we grow, we mature, we gain valuable things like character, or learn "lessons."
If life was never tough, would we grow? Would we learn? Would we gain character or learn life lessons?

Wouldn't a good father not shelter his child from the pains and trials of the world but rather proudly proclaim, "Come on world! My baby can take you! Bring it on!"

Wouldn't he allow tough circumstances to happen so his child, whom he loves, could grow and become a better person?

A wise person recently told me that when writing a screenplay the author many times will create a character, find the character's flaw, and then send this character on a series of adventures (which, although they look "fun" or "entertaining" in the movie, I doubt Indiana Jones much enjoyed being shot at, or trudging trough hot, bug and beast infested jungles) to reach a goal. However, having gone through these tough and horrid adventures the character will have overcome his flaw. For example, in Lord of the Rings we have Frodo, a naive and young little dull hobbit. By the end of his awful and terrifying journeys he is a new man, mature and wise like no other hobbit. A main character should always leave his story changed in some way.

In this same way, wouldn't God allow adventures, or circumstances to rock our world a little so we can change? So we can overcome our flaws?

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