joyful happy pains

When I was younger I went through a rapid growth spurt. I would lie in bed at night, restless, and agitated. Eventually I would get up and tell my mom that my legs hurt and I couldn’t go to sleep. She would say something about my growing pains…maybe give me some Tylenol and send me back to bed. 

I didn’t believe her. I didn’t think that I couldn’t actually have pains from growing. Isn’t that what I was created to do? …I mean you have to grow. We can’t be babies forever! I didn’t understand why my body would hurt when it was simply doing what it was made to do. 

Eventually, I stopped having these “growing pains” and settled into my new found body. And it was only when I was older that I understood where these “pains” were actually coming from.

Since the pain in my legs has subsided I have experienced many other growing pains, specifically those of growing into adulthood. Some days I really enjoy this growing, other days I could really do without it.

Growing into adulthood has caused less physical pains and more emotional and mental ones. 

Well you can imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning with a different kind of growing pain that I’m not sure I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing since the transition of growing into adulthood.

This morning I woke up with what I am now dubbing “joyful happy pains.” What are these joyful happy pains I speak of and have you ever had them? Well…I’m glad you asked. 

The happy pains were physical. I woke up this morning with an aching tummy. I sat up in bed with a grunt as my muscles flexed and screamed with the ache last night caused.

The joyful part of the pains were in my heart and soul. You know that happy feeling that feels so good it hurts and almost makes you want to cry? You don’t know why you would respond to such a great feeling this way because it is so great! Maybe it’s the fear that it’s too good to be true or the fear that it won’t last long enough, but either way there is a twinge of pain that accompanies that super high of happiness.

This morning I woke up with both…the joyful happy pains. Why? …well, I am so happy you asked…

Last night I spent the evening with a few of my absolutely favorite people in the world. The evening could not have been better if all the greatest and most creative minds in the world had tried to plan it. 

We spent the first part of our evening at Kimber’s church….Peachtree Presbyterian. [On a completely unrelated and random side not: I arrived at the church early so I spent some time in their cafe. It was blissful! It was so warm and cozy and quiet that I couldn’t help but smile as I read in this little nook of the city I found. Dear North Point Community Church…where is our lodge and cafe? Can we have one? Please? Anyways…moving on.]

We were at the church for an event with Feed My Starving Children. Feed My Starving Children is a Christian, non-profit organization committed to feeding starving children all over the world. (It is an incredible organization doing unbelievably awesome work in Jesus’s name across the globe. I highly suggest you visit their website and hook up with an event if there is one near you. Also…these videos explain and much more clearly portray the need that FMSC is helping. ) So a group of us gathered at the church…and in 1 1/2 hours 200 people packed over 56,000 meals. That is enough meals to feed over 150 kids everyday for a full year. And we gave just an hour and a half of our time. On top of how incredible this is…all the food is going to Kenya! And well…you can only imagine how much that warms my heart!

It is an understatement to say that I felt unbelievably blessed being able to sing and dance and chat with good friends while packaging these meals for children that would most likely not make it otherwise.

It’s a twisted world we live in, if you ask me. 

In the oh-so-American way…after celebrating the success of the night with our fellow meal packers we had our own (much, much less severe) hunger pains to silence so we headed to Kimber’s favorite Mexican joint…the rest of us were dragged along…the food isn’t really that good. 

Just kidding…we all gladly went because it’s freaking delicious. And this is where I (very sadly) must admit to you that there are no photos of us in hair nets, or with our cheese dip, or margaritas (the absurdity of this post…contrast starvation with abundance…I can hardly bear the insane reality…) because in our childish (and amazing) race to beat our friends to the restaurant I forgot to grab my camera as I jumped in KJM’s car. I wish it were different, but this is the sad reality. Better luck next time…and don’t worry, there will be a next time.

Once at the restaurant we ate and drank and chatted. Yep. That’s it. There was nothing exciting about our evening. There were no magical lights, no fancy shows, no whimsical tricks, but there was laughter. And there was joy and happiness. As cheesy as it sounds it was one of the best nights with friends I have had in a long time. There were drinks spilled due to rocky tables, random (hilarious) conversations with random people, jokes…about everything, sarcasm that is so good and funny “it’ll make you slap your mama” …unless of course, your name is K. Cave in which case you would never, under any circumstances, slap your mama. There were tears from laughing so hard and cases of not breathing do to impaired airways…from laughing…so hard.

Bottom line…that work out I did yesterday morning was redundant…I got my ab work out in. And it was good.

When I woke up this morning, with my joyful happy pains, I could do nothing but grin. Grin at the blessings of my life. My friends, my provisions, my house, my home (there is a difference in case you’re wondering), my God, my Jesus, my Spirit, my relationships, my, my family, my school, my mentors, my happy heart, my rest that I feel I have finally found in the past few months, my time that I get to spend with my favorites, my gifts, my ability to live, to dance, to love, to give, to share life, to have my own life, to have freedom, to choose, to find joy and find it abundantly full, my food, my car, my immediate access to the world via a plethora of technological options, my contentment.

What more could a person wish for?

How is it that something we were made to do…live and live well…how could it cause pains?

…I guess because we’re just doing it that well…

Happy Saturday…I hope it’s filled with lots and lots of joyful happy pains! xxxoo