When I Grow Up

Last night ‘When I Grow Up’ from ‘Matilda’ was on TV. This fun, feel-good song got me musing:

When I grow up
I will be tall enough to reach the branches
That I need to reach to climb the trees
You get to climb when you’re grown up

And when I grow up
I will be smart enough to answer all the questions
That you need to know the answers to
Before you’re grown up

And when I grow up
I will eat sweets every day on the way to work
And I will go to bed late every night
And I will wake up when the sun comes up
And I will watch cartoons until my eyes go square
And I won’t care

When I grow up
I will be strong enough to carry all the heavy things

You have to haul around with you when you’re grown up…

When children sing ‘When I grow up’ they’re thinking about being bigger and stronger, knowing more and being free from the restrictions that adults put on them. It’s a wonderful innocence that some people never lose. It’s the ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ place, where everything is perfect, that exists in our dreams. It’s a world of permanent, consistent, love, joy and peace.

…At the end of the song Miss Honey and Matilda, bring the song greater depth:

When I grow up
I will be brave enough to fight the creatures
That you have to fight beneath the bed
Each night to be a grown up

When I grow up
Just because you find that life’s not fair
It doesn’t mean that you just have to grin and bear it
If you always take it on the chin and wear it
Nothing will change

When I grow up
Just because I find myself in this story
It doesn’t mean that everything is written for me
If I think the ending is fixed already
I might as well be saying I think that it’s ok
And that’s not right

Miss Honey talks about facing her fears with courage; Matilda is confronting and fighting against injustice. Being grown-up isn’t about age; it’s having the maturity to face life as it really is.

This morning I was reading the Job story. Job is alone, suffering, innocent, misunderstood… He says, ‘But he (God) knows the way I take, and when he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.’ Job has the grown-up maturity to believe that God is present in his suffering, and somehow Job will come out of it a better person.

I then read, ‘…you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything…’When I grow up… I’ll have the maturity that comes from tested faith… fighting my under-the-bed fears… confronting life’s unfairnesses… persevering through troubled times. Perhaps ‘When I grow up’ is not being bigger, stronger and knowing more, but being tested and coming out like gold.