Becoming

When do you "become" something?

This thought started as an inkling last night while I was on the phone with a dear friend of mine who is beginning a long trek back to where he belongs. I knew him as a missionary. He was maybe not the "best" missionary I knew, but he served with love, compassion, and desire...In my book add a little bit more obedience and everything would be perfect. That was his vice, we all have our own, don't pretend like you don't.

He came home from his mission and was distracted by the "shiny" things of the world. Easily done. Then, he became. I don't know when this takes place, or if it is a moment in time, but it happens. We all are constantly "becoming" something. Whether it is the normal physical transitions from child to teen to adult, or it is something of a spiritual matter, mentally, etc. He was becoming a wrestler and a college student. In turn he became a part of a team, a frat house, a partier. It's easy to look back and see the path he has walked and etched into the world. This all came crashing when he found himself maybe becoming an unwed father. He had to stop wrestling, losing his scholarships, dropping out of college because he couldn't afford it any longer, and found a full-time job at a prison. In a matter of days he became something completely different than what he was, or ever had been.

Some, at this point in the story, might look at this and passively say "what a waste of potential" "how sad" "if only" ...and all those pitiful sayings we use to cover up our true emotions toward something. Yet, he is still becoming, this isn't the end of the story...not yet. He started to attend his church meetings again, he felt something inside as he did and decided to meet with his bishop, he was directed to his stake president, and then had a disciplinary counsel. The counsel decided that he should attend his family ward, he should date members, and he should continue on his path for 6 months until they meet again.

Last night I spoke to this friend for a couple of hours. We caught up on everything in life. I do this periodically with this friend, probably once a month sometimes once every other month. Last night's conversation was the first time in a long time that he was the one to bring the gospel into play with questions I was asking. He's the one who made a spiritual connection to the way I was feeling about my life.

He is becoming. Becoming something of the man that God expects him to be. Becoming softer, kinder, gentler, more loving, caring, spiritually minded, focused, etc.

That's where this thought started. When do we become?

I came to work today, the only one in the office for most of the day, and passed by a mirror. I stopped and looked at myself, at first to make sure I didn't look absolutely horrible, then I realized that I am not that teenage girl that I usually think of myself as in my mind. I have become. I am a woman now, it startled me, which sounds humorous considering I am twenty-five and just now realizing that I am a woman. But it's true. It startled me.

I searched my face for a moment for what exactly changed, my hair, my eyes, my nose, my skin, etc. Really, not much has changed.

I realized something in that moment, it's my countenance. What's on the outside of me is basically the same as it was two years ago, but what's inside me is what has changed. I don't even know how, or what, but I do know it has. That's what has made me a "woman". I became.

I wish I had some profound conclusion, an answer to the question, but I do not. I don't understand this concept. It's almost the same as growth. It happens, we don't know when and we surely don't know why. One day, we wake up and we have morphed into something that we were not before, whether it is for the better or for the worse.

I guess all I can do right now is make sure that as I am "becoming" whatever it may be that I am, it is something that my Lord wants me to become, rather than falling prey to the "shiny" things of the world.