It’s a little daunting to consider the theme when I grow up in the year when with your teenage peers of yesteryear you’re celebrating your fiftieth high school reunion. Really? When you grow up? 
If maturation hasn’t fully happened by now, when might it? I do like Walter Hooper’s hearty dismissal of the idea that C. S. Lewis’s attitudes toward women changed from early sexism to increasing egalitarianism, especially through his marriage to Joy Davidman in later life, which goes like this: as if Lewis “did not know what life was about until the age of fifty-eight.”
Indeed. By age fifty-eight, and much earlier, one should surely know what life is all about. So let me count the times when I firmly believed I had grown up: age seventeen, twenty-three, twenty-eight, thirty. Fifty, for sure, right? Well, maybe later too. Sixty and counting. So the years roll by, and at some point we might well echo the line from the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, “We’re all grown here.”
But more recently, instead of thinking of my having grown up as an accomplished fact, I’ve come to think of how one of my favourite professors, upon approaching retirement, said something like, “Now I will begin to grow up,” or, “Now I will have to grow up.” His breezy quip gives me pause. What did he recognize in himself that needed further maturity? More, in what ways do I need to continue to grow up in—and had better get busy doing so?
For myself, having been given the further precious gift of viewing the world through the eyes of a wife for forty-three years, as a mother and now grandmother of a growing family, surely, I have grown up—more so than not, one would hope. Also, as the fiftieth high school reunion approaches, and having had the additional privilege of having taught hundreds of high school and university students for over thirty years, it’s timely to rethink what it means to grow up. On today’s shortlist on this subject, these words come to mind: Wonder, Gratitude, Love.
Wonder.
Growing up is a funny thing. I believe it has much to do with “growing down” to who we were as small children—and never forgetting those things that made our hearts sing, that filled us with wonder because we were alive. For if we don’t live out of wonder, what’s the point?
To help me to “grow down,” to honour wonder, I keep my childhood wooden rocking chair in my study—a lovely reminder of who I was in the morning of my life. 
I recall that pivotal moment in the department store when my eyes first spotted the chair and I made a beeline for it, plunked down into it, and started rocking away, marveling at this chair that was just my size, perfect in every way, and smiling up at my parents in the firm belief that the chair was mine, mine, just waiting for me. I wasn’t getting up any time soon, not until it was clear that this chair was coming home with me. There was no doubt in my mind that this was my chair, though I kind of knew I was getting away with something when my confidence resulted in my loving parents smiling down at me and then buying the chair. (No, my insistence on things didn’t always work, thank goodness. . . .) This child-sized rocking chair is a sweet memento of the childlike wonder and joy that I long to keep alive always. I admit, I had to dust the chair off somewhat just now, something I should really do more often. Yes, the intention to fan the flame of childlike wonder over the decades is no easy feat. Joy is too easily displaced by the grime of unworthy thoughts.
Gratitude.
For some of us, it’s easy to brood, to get grumpy. We battle fears, discouragement, resentment, and more giants that threaten to grow. But in the maelstrom of life, filled with all sorts of challenges and real enemies, let’s also consider how fantastic it is that we get to be alive. Let’s be grateful for all the lovingkindness that comes our way.
My favourite writers and teachers and all other favourite people are those who with every word and every breath are inviting me into their hearts. They give to me with their full souls the deep wisdom and love that truly nourishes. Through their spoken and written words, their actions, I am invited to whole banquets—banquets with laden tables, merry guests, musicians, dancing. . . . And at those banquets I’m invited into quiet spaces too, soft gentle places where I can slip away to rest a while, shed a tear, dream. . . . For such community, I am grateful. And may I ever more be such a person who invites others to the banquet.
Gratitude, gratitude—let me be ever more grateful so that the darker moods loosen their hold on me. If I should clench my fists tightly, rejecting the good offered me, let me repent swiftly, opening my hands to receive the joy.
Love.
Let love be genuine. Love with a full heart. But to truly love also means that your heart will break. It’s not what we sign up for, but one way or another heartbreak comes with the territory of genuine love. And would you really want the alternative of a hardened heart that is no longer capable of love? Then there’s the difference between gift love and need love. We’re a mixture, and that’s reasonable, but if we present others with more of the needy kind than the giving kind, love suffers. 
(Yes, you might recognize this loose paraphrase from Lewis’s The Four Loves).
When I grow up, I want to be more loving in the genuine way. Fragile, fickle soul that I am, easily wounded, it’s time to grow up, to be made new. In Mere Christianity, Lewis observes that new people love people more and need them less. This one catches my breath every time: love more, need less. 
The statement raises important questions. Am I seeking affirmation from others when instead I need to give love? Can I love people more without requiring a return on the investment? The idea is tricky because it could easily slide into vanity, aloofness, but the intention is that as I become more secure in knowing that I am loved by God, I can deepen, heal, grow stronger. And out of that better place I can become more loving.
Oh, when I grow up! It’s about time. Pondering the theme When I grow up is not just a little bit daunting in my season of life—it’s very daunting. But when isn’t really the correct word either, is it. How much better it is to say, As I grow up. Because I’m a pilgrim on a journey, I’ll do well to consider what today’s matters and choices could look like when viewed in the light of eternity. So much that captures one’s attention will pale like vanishing smoke in the face of everlasting Wonder, Gratitude, and Love.
Therefore, as I keep growing up with the help of God, my hope is this: may the gifts of memory, of family and friends and community, of countless other blessings, inspire me to do better, live more deeply into the wonder and joy of it all. And true hope does not disappoint. 
Thanks for reading, for listening.
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Monika Hilder 