She did pee-pees on the pot Grandpa, and she's only 23!

I got a call from my daughter with the good news. Isn't that great? And she's is only 23. Isn’t' that amazing? By the way, it's twenty three months, not years. Yes, I am messing with you!

Is it a coincidence that within the same 24 hour period, I was reminded of the verse from 1 Corinthians 13:11 “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things”? A friend of mine says that coincidences are little miracles that God does not get the credit for. Of course the fellow with the pitch fork can engineer coincidences too!

What is my point? It would be sad if the toilet training of our children was not accomplished until their twenties. It is also sad when we carry many of the ways we learned to cope as children, into adulthood. They say things happen in threes, and still within same 24 hour period of the above “coincidence”, it was brought to my attention just how much I still have to learn that at some level is “elementary my dear Watson”. I was sharing with a friend about a hard won life lesson, and he in all his wisdom and maturity told me “duh!” It was so obvious to him, but for me it was a lesson painfully learned, and his “duh” had shades of 'how could you have fallen for that, stupid?' attached to it. A moment of insensitivity perhaps ('don't quit your day job to go into counseling'), but as I say it brought home how often we (I don't believe it's just me), operate as adults out of the scars and ways we learned to cope, as children.

And more often than not, we don't see it. And more often than not, the Lord will bring it to our attention through relationship difficulties. Take it as a given we don't want to see it. The problem seem to be that if we admit that there is a problem, then we will (should at any rate) have to deal with it. And it's so much easier to blame the other person. And there will always be things about the other person that we can focus on, and so avoid having to deal with our own garbage!

There is a recovery saying that rings bells with me. It is this “We will not change until the pain of staying the same gets greater than the pain and fear of changing”. How many people come out of a broken marriage, for example, and because they have not dealt with their stuff, make exactly the same mistake in the second and even subsequent marriages. But we all do this at one level or another. Do you believe the Bible? It says in James 3:2 “In many things we all fail”. Yes it is one of my favourite quotes. But let me ask you this 'Do you know experientially that this verse is true of you?' We tend to fall into two categories, those who are painfully aware of it, and those who don't have a clue. But even those of us who are painfully aware of their faults, usually are thinking of but a single fault (an addiction for example). The verse says 'many things'. In particular, though addictions take on a life of their own, they usually start as symptom of things (plural) not dealt with (as for example a way of dulling our pain). They tell me that insanity is the result of not dealing properly with our pain. I am beginning to suspect that all dysfunction has its beginning in the same source.

We pick up so much of this from our environment. When we are children, we just don't have the skills to do anything else. But when we are adults, we need to learn to start dealing with our stuff. When we don't, we will try to pretend that we have, that we are mature, and we will need to hide and wear masks. We become isolated because if we let people near, they might just discover who we really are and reject us.

There is too little teaching on these things in the church, so that too many of us stay babes in Christ. It is through knowledge that the righteous are delivered (Proverbs 11:9). I have found in some ways that I have more in common with the non-Christian who is in recovery, than I have with the Christian who is not. The differences between Christians and non-Christians in recovery seem to be two. Firstly we Christians have an authoritative source (the Bible). In particular, there are many secular sources that in light from the Bible are simply wrong. The excesses of secular teaching on catharsis for example. Secondly we have the resources of heaven at our disposal. We do not need to rely on just our own abilities and strength and wisdom. For various reasons (lack of knowledge for example) Christians do not always take advantage of the help that is available. And even if we know, we may not ask and we do not have, because we do not ask (James 4:2). And we will not ask while we are still in denial.