71: Growing Pains

Hello, sweet friends. This podcast is my little love project, poured straight from my heart to yours. Whether you’ve been here from the start or just found me, I’m so grateful you’re here. If there’s ever a topic you’re struggling with that I haven’t covered, please reach out—I’d love to hear from you. My email is in the show notes, and you can always DM me on Instagram. Hearing from you is my favorite part of this work.

Today, we’re talking about growing pains—the kind that stretch your heart, not just your body. When we send our missionaries out into the world, they grow—but so do we. And just like those tender moments when our babies teethed or their legs ached from growth spurts, this kind of growth is often painful. But that pain? It’s not a sign something’s wrong. It’s a sign something sacred is happening.

We’ll explore why life is about growing again and again, why struggle is part of the plan, and how both you and your missionary are becoming something more—together, even if you’re far apart. I share personal stories, the honest wrestle of letting go, and powerful reminders from Elder Oaks, President Nelson, and Elder Uchtdorf to help you reframe pain as part of your divine journey.

So take a deep breath, mama. You’re not alone. You’re becoming. And it’s holy work.

If this episode resonates with you, I’d love to hear about it. And if you’re walking through your own growing pains, remember—some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven. But they do come.

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Transcript

0:30

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I love to call this podcast My Little Love Project. I do so much of this with. So much love and so much of my heart, like I pour into it. I really try to think and consider about the most beneficial topics for all of you, and at any time if there is something that you're struggling with that I have not done a podcast on, please feel free to reach out. I've included my email in this show notes. You can also go to my Instagram and send me. A DM and I love to receive messages and I love to hear how you're doing. It is one of my very favorite things about doing this podcast because when I started it, I started it with the idea that I didn't care if I was only speaking to my mom, and my mom was the only one listening. I was committed to keep putting it out there just in order to help moms. So if it's impacted you at all, I would love to hear from you. So this is an episode that I've been thinking about, it's called Growing Pains. And I was actually thinking about it in terms of when our kids are little and you know, they're getting teeth when they're babies and it's just so painful. And they're miserable. And we're miserable. And then when they start growing and they're just, their body's aching'cause they're having these growing pains and. It wasn't exactly like we expected, but you know, our friends had kind of told us some of the things our moms had mentioned, so we knew that our kids were gonna go, go. Through some of this, but this is the kind of growing pains, but that's more in our hearts and less about our physical body because when we send a missionary out into the world, yes, they're going to grow, but we do too. And I wanna offer the idea that life is about growing, not once. Not when we were teenagers, but over and over and over and over again. And growth almost always comes with pain. And that pain doesn't mean something has gone wrong, it means something sacred is happening inside of us. So imagine if we were like when our kids were getting teeth and we're like, we just don't want them to struggle. We don't want them to hurt. We'd just rather have them not have teeth. Right. Like we would never do that. Like we just kind of endure it and we help them and we're there for them and we soothe. And so it's interesting how when they're going through a different sort of growing pain, how quickly we are to want to take that away from them. And we'd sometimes imagine that the goal of life is comfort, or ease or certainty, but if the actual goal is growth, so elder. DH Oaks once said, the purpose of mortal life for the children of God is to provide the experiences needed to progress towards perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny not to be comfortable. I. Not to be perfect, but to progress. And progress doesn't feel like a highlight reel. It feels like friction, like discomfort, like resistance. And that applies to us and it applies to our missionary. And so let's just go back to the, the, the body for a minute. So I was a personal trainer for many, many years and I still love to lift weights and I'm sore a a lot. And that's not my goal to be sore, but I also understand like what's happening in my body. But when somebody starts lifting weights for the first time, I. They don't realize that what's actually happening in your body is these little tiny micro tears and then your, those muscles heal and they get stronger because they get all these little micro tears and that's how you get muscle growth and muscle strength. And so you actually have to create tho those little muscle tears by. Time under tension, putting your body through heavier weights than what you're normally used to, or any time that I've taken a break from weightlifting, when I've come back to it the first time, the first few times that I do squats and I don't have any weights, all those muscles are waking back up. All those little micro tears are starting to happen again, and then it. Heels and get stronger. So I like to keep that in mind that that's what's happening inside my body that creates growth and strength. And so if we think about that in the terms of like our missionaries, I. We know that that kind of thing is also gonna hap happen. So we love them, we pray for them, we fast for them and we want the absolute best for them. But sometimes in our desire to protect them, we start to forget something really important that they are meant to struggle. That's how growth works. President Nelson reminds us that the Lord loves effort, and effort brings rewards that cannot come without it. And he, that was something that he said in a worldwide devotion for. Young adults in May of 2021, and that effort, it means work. It means facing fears, it means confronting, homesickness, discouragement, companions that are challenging moments where they question if they're enough or they even believe what they're teaching. And I love this quote by Chuck Swindle. He once said, when I ask people when they really grew spiritually, they never describe an easy time. Never. So those experiences are definitely the refiners. Fire and there's no promise that it's gonna be easy. And I think that that was one of the problems that I had when my older son went. I felt like I was, you know, sacrificing by, by letting my kid go. And then I was really, really mad at God when he ran into. Some pretty serious, you know, challenging situations and your missionary and I, and for some reason in my nativity I thought that it was supposed to be like this very growth building, but in some way, some somehow kind of a and easy, I mean, I knew it was gonna take dedication and there was gonna be things that were challenging, like. He's definitely not a morning person and I knew he was going to struggle with getting up and following the schedule. So those are the kind of struggles that I wanted to sign him up for, but not ones that, you know, put him in physical danger or anything like that. But then you look back at. The our missionaries that went out during Joseph Smith's time, even the apostles after Christ passed away and they went out teaching the people and just the tribulations they went through. And so I just wanna offer, your missionary will not return unscathed, but they will return refined. And I think that if we can kind of grasp that and. Kind of level up our understanding and our thinking about what's gonna happen and that that struggles and the things that they face are gonna be part of it. And sometimes they end in a way that we don't really anticipate. I had somebody that I spoke with that her son. Started to question whether or not the church was true. Then he came home early because he decided it wasn't, you know, he immediately, you know, got off the plane, took off his garments, the whole thing, and she was, she was so upset about why this was happening to him and why this was happening to her, and she thought missions were supposed to help refine him in a way where he would come closer to God, not further from God. And through the conversations and coaching that we've had, we've really talked about like, nothing's gone wrong here. And what if this is his refining? What if this is the way that his path is supposed to be, and what if it's okay? And even though it doesn't look the way we want to, and it doesn't look ideal and it looks painful to us, and it pa it is painful to us, what if he'll return? In his time and, and God's working in his heart the way that he needs to work in his heart. So let's not rush the process and try to make it prettier and try to make it easier or more comfortable because it's hard, it's beautiful and is hard so. While they're outgrowing and stretching and becoming, so are you. And this is the part that we sometimes miss, and this is the one of the main reasons I do this podcast, is it's not a podcast for missionaries that are out serving. It's a podcast for the moms that are at home wiping away tears, navigating the ache of a really quiet room. Trying not to check your email or waiting, you know, impatiently by the phone for them to call, wondering if you are doing enough to help them or if you're doing too much. So this is your growth. And ER Hall, Holland said something that really comforts me. He said some blessings come soon. Some come late and some don't come until heaven. But for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. And that was back in October of 1999. And I, I love that because it doesn't have to be on our timetable, and I think that's one of the reasons that I had such a hard, hard time and just went through so many things, was I wanted to be able to tell God what to do. And I wanted him to be on the hook to show up the way that I wanted him to. And that's just not how it works. And you know, is, aren't we glad that's not how it works? Because it makes God so much more interesting. So maybe the piece that, that you're looking for, because they're struggling with whatever it is, the language hasn't come yet. And maybe the comfort feels far off, but what if the becoming is the blessing? What if this ache that you're carrying is not a sign that you're failing, but a signal that you're changing and you're let letting it change you? And let this season deepen your faith, let it soften your edges, let it teach you that you can do hard things along with your missionary. And we're not meant to avoid growing pains. We're meant to walk, walk through them. Elder Udo said, it's your reaction to adversity, not the adversity itself that determines how your life story will develop. So sometimes we get very reactionary and we are, we are really surprised. I know I was very surprised by some of the things my older son faced on his mission. I was. I would go so far as to say I was even shocked, and if I had not gone through that and I had not learned and grown from that, I. Experience, even though it was so difficult at the time, and I've, I've mentioned it caused some trauma in my brain and I had to go and get, you know, some, some help and go and see my therapist and I did EMDR to help heal that, that trauma and that wound that I had in my, in myself. But if I hadn't gone through all that, I would not be here today. I would not be doing this podcast. I would not be showing up for all moms everywhere whose heart has ached about sending a missionary. So this. This concept that elder or dorf shared, it applies to you and it applies to your missionary. And sometimes we panic when pain shows up, whether it's theirs or it's ours and we wanna fix it, and we wanna control it, and we wanna pray it away. But what if the pain isn't the problem? What if it's the evidence of a transformation? And I know that this concept is super hard and I have been, I have wrestled with it myself because I want my kids to have this ease and comfort life. But what I can say is when they're, when they're in an easy place and it's comfortable, there is no transformation. So when. We grow, we learn to stay in the discomfort and stay in the process and stay in the faith. And I've mentioned my, my boys all were wrestlers and wrestling is just a really brutal, brutal sport. And one of my boys, when, when he was on his mission, he said, missions are harder than wrestling because it takes every part of you. In a, in a wrestling match, it ends in six minutes. And so even though you're in a full sprint, going as hard as you can for six minutes, and they, they come off exhausted, but they, he said a mission is harder because all parts of you are required. So I want you to imagine this with me. Your, your missionaries out there somewhere in the world looking up at the same sky that you're looking at growing. And here you are. Wherever you're listening from, and you are also growing, but you're in different places, but you're on the same journey. So both of you are learning how to trust God in a really deep, meaningful way. Both of you are becoming more aware of his grace. Both of you are seeing life and maybe even God with new eyes. And you're not behind and you're not doing it wrong. You're just in it just like they are. So let this be your mission too. So I invite you to shift the way you think about pain, that it's not a punishment, or even though shift the way you think about their struggles, they're not a punishment. They're not something to rush past, but it's something sacred that you can really. Settle into and even create some rest in some of that discomfort. Growing pains are a sign that something is happening, that something is moving, that something or someone is becoming. So your missionary is becoming something and so are you, and that is so, so holy. So that is what I have for you today, and I am so grateful for all of you that join me week in and week out and the messages that you have sent, I told you that I would read fan mail. I did get a message on Instagram just the other day that I wanted to share with you and. Sh this person said I've been listening to your podcast for a few weeks now, and I wanna tell you how much I enjoy them and how much they've helped me. My youngest left for his LDS mission on January 29th of this year, and having him gone has been the hardest thing ever for me. Oh my heart for her. I woke up yesterday with a notification of your latest podcast about loneliness and could hardly wait to listen. It did. It did. Describe what I am going through perfectly. I really just have so much grief right now, and I think a lot of that is motherhood as I knew. As I knew it is over. I absolutely hate how quiet and empty my house feels. I miss my kids so much. I actually even physically feel ill, ill a lot over my sadness and loneliness these days. I will do better for a while, and then it just hits me again. Anyway, that's the part I wanted to share, and I just invite you if this is, if this resonates with you, if you have something you wanna share, you're welcome to send it to me and I. My deepest desire is that this podcast reaches the right people and helps them so that they can grow, so that you guys can grow, that it gives you a little bit of comfort. And if it doesn't give you comfort and there's some topics that you want me to talk about, please reach out. I would love to hear from you, and until next week, I will see you next time. Bye-bye.