I remember being eighteen. I remember when I graduated high school. I remember thinking I was so grown up. Now having a child who’s almost that age, I realize I was still in many regards, a kid. It’s amazing what time teaches us. Experience shows us. How life humbles us through the years, realizing we’re always learning. Well, at least we should be. Though I have come to find the best years of my life are the ones in which I walked with the Lord. Which I have found, for me, is more now than ever. For life has shown me my need for God, and how I genuinely want to walk with Him. For the wisest I have ever been and the happiest at my core that I’ve ever been, is when I walk with the Lord. Time can teach us much, though I have learned the most, the more I prioritize God as my number one. The more I practice my faith, the more I have become and am still becoming who God has called me to be. Friend, no matter our age, when we practice our faith boldly and have a relationship with God, it is there where we can best grow as God has planned. Life teaches us much, just simply being life. Though when we have God with us through all of it, it is there where wisdom grows, we grow as people and faith flourishes. My oldest is getting closer to eighteen. Though I think in some ways, he’s wiser than I was at that same age. Though I know it is because he walks more with God. I am grateful for this. For time can teach much, though with God is where we can truly grow. That my friend, that’s in all the best ways possible. That’s how we can truly grow up, with our hope of heaven.

Erin Fitts-Brower

Growing up

Colossians 2:6-7 NIV

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

1 Peter 2:2-3 NIV

Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Philippians 3:12-14 NIV

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.