Jeremy and I take a walk everyday. It’s our “get out of the house and keep our sanity” time. Plus exercise is good for the mind and body. We take our crazy, energetic dog and we walk and talk. We’ve had some really good conversations about a lot of stuff. Today it was about the difference between growth and change.
Last night we watched an episode of The English Game on Netflix. Side note: the writer of Downton Abbey wrote this. While I’m not a huge fan of football (soccer), the story is great if you’re looking for something to watch. Ok, back to my point. A very frustrated Arthur, the star football player on the posh team, tells his dad in episode 5, “If I am to work here, you must take me as I am.” So when Jeremy brought up growth and change, I thought of this scene and the major difference between those 2 words.
By definition, grow means to undergo natural development by increasing in size and changing physically; progress to maturity. Change actually means making or becoming different. I think of my flowers in my backyard. Those begonias I bought are starting to get bigger and bloom, but they will always be begonias. They’ll never be petunias.
So often we try to change people when really we should just take them for who they are. And that’s why I think there’s a major difference between growing and changing. God made each of us unique with different gifts, personalities, ways of thinking…it’s what makes the world beautiful. We can’t change how God made us. We can, however, grow and mature in who we are. I think once we start embracing each other for who we are instead of trying to change people into something else or into what we’ve created as the model of a good husband/wife/leader/etc, we’ll all be a little less stressed.
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