Growing Towards Maturity

Our daughter Adley has needed some help with her speech so each week she meets with a speech therapist to help her pronounce her words and combine them in sentences. Today was a particularly painful session because they were encouraging her to use her words to ask for a puzzle piece before they would give it to her. In the past they would ask her to try but not force the issue as much. Today they were pushing her harder. You could see her struggle to say the words they were asking of her and just when she thought she was finished they would ask her to repeat it again, but this time correctly. As a mom, I sat in the corner knowing that this was best for her because it was growing her to the next level, but at the same time I was hurting for her because I saw how difficult it was. Part of me wanted to scream STOP, but the other part of me knew that this process was necessary.
To me this is a great analogy of our relationship with God. As his daughters and sons he often puts us in a painful and hard place, not because of anything wrong we’ve done, but because he wants to mature us. I love the purpose behind the process of discipline in scripture and that is to train for correction and maturity. Adley was being corrected with her speech today so that she will be able in the future to say things right. What a great God we serve to love us so deeply that he cares enough to grow us for something better! If you are in a hard place today be encouraged that your father loves you.