Growing Relationships

This Thursday we will celebrate my oldest daughter’s tenth birthday. What they say is true: time does fly by.

I’ve noticed something very interesting in recent months. As Olivia has grown, there have been changes in our relationship. She is still my daughter, and being her mother is still the most important aspect of our relationship. I still cannot sacrifice that in order to simply be her friend. But, even so, there are little hints in our relationship that point to friendship. There are new things we can share. She’s beginning to think differently, and those new thought processes allow us to have conversations we’ve never been able to have before.

I can’t help but think that there should be some similarities between the growth of my interactions with Olivia and the growth of my interactions with my heavenly Father. How do my prayers today compare with my prayers of ten years ago? How will they compare to ten years from now? Will they constantly be growing, or will they remain stagnant?

Seeing the growth in my relationship with Olivia makes me want to grow more in my interactions with God. I want to have deeper conversations with Him. I want to understand more of His Word, just as Olivia is beginning to understand more of my world. I want to go deeper. I want to be more intimate.

The past ten years with Olivia have been incredibly precious as I have watched how much she has learned as she’s grown from an infant to a blossoming young lady. I am excited to see what the next ten years bring as I watch her grow and mature in an entirely new way.

I pray that each measure of growth I see in her will remind me of the relationship growth my heavenly Father wants to see in me. And, I pray that Olivia and I both grow with great grace.