Growing Up Fast

His Mom was a widow, he'd been told.  No one mentioned she was, in the language of the day, a "grass" widow (a woman whose husband had just left).  So when the state senator needed a page in Austin, he was eager to go.

At age 12, he was the page for the state senator from Tyler, discovering Austin.  Legislative sessions are less than a half year, once every other year.  So, before the Great Depression, he was living in Austin, at first with an uncle, and then in his own apartment, writing for a small newspaper.

At age 14, a man approached him on the Capitol grounds, asking about his relatives in Smith County, knowing all the names, but refusing to identify himself.  A short conversation, then the man disappeared.  This prompted him to pursue just exactly what had happened to his father.  The truth came out, and he found his father living in Florida.  By this time, as the Depression deepened, he was alone in Austin, with a secure job, feeling a bit detached from the economy around him.

Some folks grow up slowly, extending "youth" through graduate school, having to be "grown-up" as late as 28 or so.  For him, it was like learning to swim by being thrown off the end of the pier!

The lesson in all this?  It does not have to be made easy for a person to succeed.  Success is a matter of finding purpose and direction, finding that internal compass which guides us to "make something happen".

(It can be a characteristic to search out in historical figures.  From Abraham Lincoln becoming the best self-taught lawyer and orator in our history, to simple folks that you and I know, what happens internally is the key. )

The boy who started growing up very early went back to Austin after World War II, but this time as an honor doctoral student in graduate school, preparing to be a teacher.  A calling to ministry interrupted him, in a way, turned a corner in his education, and the boy who left home at 12 became a life-time student, and an articulate pastor and preacher.

Some folks grow up fast, and discover that growing up doesn't ever need to stop!  Jesus' gift of abundant life can always be a life-long adventure of becoming.  And then looking back and celebrating just how good life has been!