The Discomfort of Growth

Growth can be painful and uncomfortable, but fighting that growth will lead to a more prolonged and greater pain.

One night we wanted to watch a movie with our kids.  We looked at Netflix and found the movie Over the Moon.  It is a really cute Chinese-American movie about a girl who goes to the moon to prove the truth of an old Chinese myth to her father.  It is a really great film and I highly recommend it. Our kids love it, especially the music.

Without going into too much spoiler territory, I will share kind of the moral that they were trying to establish in the film.  The main character Fei Fei has gone through a loss in her family.  She learns through her adventure that she needs to more or less move on and allow herself to continue to love and to grow even though she is sad.  This is best expressed in the lyrics from one of the songs, Wonderful:

Do you ever feel afraid?

Curl up when you arе hurting

And hold your memories tight to you

Yeah, me too

If you release the past

You'll move ahead and bloom at last

The heart grows and it knows

You can glow

You're wonderful

This isn’t part of the lyrics but Fei Fei also says during the song “I just want things to go back to the way they were”.  She is so held up on not letting anything change that she can’t see how much pain she is suffering from holding on so tight to the way things were.  The movie is about her learning that she can grow and continue to love despite the fact that things change.

This has been on my mind a lot for the past couple weeks.  How much do we hold on to what we are used to? How much do we stay in our comfort bubbles because it is what we know and where we are safe?

Even in our physical bodies, we start as small babies and then grow into adults.  As we grow there can be growing pains, but they are always temporary. In life we go through certain periods of growth: Going through school, moving out on our own, learning how to take on new responsibilities.  Growing up is hard.  But in the end, who is experiencing more discomfort, the adult who just stays home with their parents for their entire life because they feel safe? Or the fully grown adult who has bloomed and has increased in power and wisdom?

The end goal of why we came to this world is two fold, 1. to receive a physical body like our Heavenly Parents’. 2. To go through adversity and trial and use our God-given agency to choose to become like Them.

God wants us to grow into what They are.  They are glorified humans, who are perfect in every way and can see the end from the beginning.  They are perfectly loving and caring and know what it takes for someone to grow and become more like them.  We are created in Their image and it is because this life is a training ground for us to become more like Them.

This is probably the biggest challenge we have in this life.  In order to become like our loving Heavenly Parents, we need to choose to become like Them.  One of the most important things to Them is that we have our agency.  That will never be taken away from us.  The problem is we don’t always want to choose to do what is right but we are compelled to do so.

Both Joseph Smith and Moses faced this issue. When Moses came down from Sinai with the higher law of Christ, he saw that the people had already reverted to the ways that they had lived in Egypt and were not ready for the higher law. Thus the law of Moses was born, a lower law filled with compulsory rules to keep the children of Israel in remembrance of God.

Joseph Smith said this about teaching the members of the newly restored church:

“There has been great difficulty in getting anything into the heads of this generation. It has been like splitting hemlock knots with a corn-dodger [a piece of corn bread] for a wedge, and a pumpkin for a beetle [a wooden mallet]. Even the Saints are slow to understand. I have tried for a number of years to get the minds of the Saints prepared to receive the things of God; but we frequently see some of them, after suffering all they have for the work of God, will fly to pieces like glass as soon as anything comes that is contrary to their traditions: they cannot stand the fire at all.”

Do we feel the same when there is a break from our traditions or when God wants to give us more but we are not ready for it? Are we willing to listen to the revelation that comes from heaven, be it through inspiration, or influences in our lives such as the pandemic?  President Nelson in this past conference shared this wonderful instruction:

I know the Lord has great and marvelous plans for us—individually and collectively. With compassion and patience, He says:

“Ye are little children, and ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath … prepared for you;

“And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along.”

My dear brothers, I testify that He has been, and is, indeed leading us along, as we seek to hear Him. He wants us to grow and to learn, even through—perhaps especially through—adversity.

Adversity is certainly never comfortable, and this past year has been far from it.  But the pandemic has allowed us to see new ways and perspectives that we never would have seen without it.  We should welcome any change that the future brings.

Elder Holland also posted the following recently on Instagram

Sometimes we fear the future and worry about how change will affect us. I encourage you to embrace these new phases and stages in life as part of God’s plan. We should celebrate and enjoy these moments. Please don’t worry too much about them.

As a proud grandfather, I look forward to the future of my children and grandchildren with hope and faith. New doors will constantly open for each of us—and we should be prepared to walk through them. Change and progression are part of God’s plan for us.

God has so much worked out for us.  They know what is ahead for us on this path of life and They know what is necessary to prepare us and bring us closer to Them.  I know this much and although I can’t see the end from the beginning like God, I have faith that if I continue to try and follow my Savior through this life, I will receive the inspiration I need to develop into the perfect person God wants for me.

Have you experienced times in your life when something was uncomfortable for you but ultimately led to you becoming a better person because of it?  Have you ever received revelation from the Holy Ghost to do something unexpected, but it turned out to be the best advice you could have been given?