Growing Down.

My friend, Kara, once used this phrase and I've thought about it a lot the last year. Our lives reverberate against each other, as we both are single women, responsible adults, with vision and love for women's ministry, and can easier connect with older women that those our own age.

She was talking about how she connects deeply with the women of our church who are older, so she's always involved with them, and their kids, and the women's ministry and has made a life of such. But how now, in her mid-thirties, she feels pressure to 'grow down' since she doesn't fit in the married life and family groups, and is in this void of belonging to both and neither -- not the silliness and party-life of singles, nor the settled and planned life of family.

This week, my friend Zac, called me a "old soul," somewhat endeared and somewhat confused, by who I am and how I live. And, I remember a conversation with my mom one day, discussing my role on the women's ministry team at my church in Grand Rapids, and how I loved it and felt more connected to those 5 women than almost anyone my own age. I remember exactly where she was standing when she said, "That doesn't surprise me at all." And how that flowed into a conversation about who I am, what I love to do, and how that meshes with my life.

In the midst of this, I'm left wondering and longing, what does it mean for me to life in this land-between being the person I am, but the life stage struggle to belong in?

Perhaps its all fear. That if I stop trying to be young and fun and single, then I'll never meet someone who wills forward for the same things that I do. Or, that I'll be home and alone and lonely. Perhaps it's that I still do have that adventure lets-go-hike-or-fly spirit that gets squashed amidst stability. Or perhaps it's just a longing for heaven, for home, for that idea of a belonging. And that I will never feel a sense of 'whole' until that final day has come.

As I hold these thoughts, weary from desperately trying to 'grow down,' and wishing and wanting more, just to be the holistic woman that God has made and called me to be, I am still left wondering and pondering: what does it mean to live this life, not growing down, but growing full?