All That to Say: Grow

For the past seven days, I have been watching a sweet, little, now 9 day old, baby girl do her thing. Her "thing" is to wake up, eat, poop, sleep, repeat.

That's the sum total of her existence.  The whole cycle lasts about 3 hours.  Every 3 hours she relives her life.  And in the less than one week that we have had her, she has changed before our eyes.  

At first, each time she awakened, she awakened with one need; eat.  Then, as she would eat, she would leisurely suck down about 2 oz. of formula, maybe a little less.  Then she'd poop, burp, get drowsy and fall asleep.

Now when she awakens, she demands to be fed, hungrily sucks down 3-4 oz., gets annoyed that we stop to burp her, then does the rest of her cycle, but now she stays awake for a while.  Not a long time (really just long enough to prevent us from going to sleep).  But she's more alert during her awake time.  She makes eye contact.  She's trying to raise up her little bobble head while I'm burping her.  She's taking in the world around her.  She's growing.  Each day she is becoming a better version of herself.

And watching her I have been struck by how much work it is to grow, just to grow.  That's her one job.  Growing.  That's why she sleeps so much.  Because growing is exhausting.

I think that's true no matter how old we get.  Growing is hard work.  And at times, it's exhausting.

But the benefit of growth is that we become better versions of ourselves.  And if we are open to the hard work that comes with growth, we become more like the people God created us to be.

All that to say, becoming a better you is hard work, but so worth the effort.  So go, grow.  And get some sleep.

*Photo courtesy of Shauna Maness Photography who shall someday will these GROW letters to me.