No Such Thing

I went to a concert last night. 

Those words. They're my "once upon a time." So many of my what-a-great-night stories begin with that little sentence. There was this one, and this most recent one, and this one that was actually life changing.

But last night's show had me stewing a bit this morning, wondering: When am I going to grow up? 

It's something I wonder on a daily basis, really. I've even written about it before. I look around at my life - the responsibilities of caring for a husband, three kids and a home - and I ask myself Who put me in charge? I have to ask myself that, because most of the time there's no other grown up around to ask. All the grown ups have handed me the car keys and flown the coop.

I don't feel grown up. I feel like I missed the class where they taught how to be a grown up, and the learning curve on this real-life-experience track is STEEP.

So this morning as I'm scrolling through pictures and I see shot after shot of my friends and I having a lot of silly fun this weekend, I wonder When will I be found out? I'm certain the grown up police are going to bust me for enjoying life a little too much lately.

It's funny, that tendency that we, the generally responsible, have to feel guilty for having a raucously good time every once in awhile. When asked, we say things like "it was a nice night," or "I enjoyed being with my friends, but it's back to work this morning!" We act as if we have to remind people that we haven't lost our heads, that it's business as usual. That we are, in fact, grown ups.

Maybe it's a Southern thing. Maybe it's a church thing. Maybe it comes from not seeing grown ups actually have any real fun when we were kids - because, like us, they chose to have their real fun when the kids weren't around. Or maybe we're just lazy, or afraid of something, and it's easier to act like everything just isn't that big of a deal. Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it's not right.

So in my early morning, up-too-late fog, my brain lazily filing away memories, I opened to Ephesians 2, my pre-assigned reading for today. I skimmed over familiar words about being dead in transgressions and saved by grace (yay!), when the words jumped out at me.

Made alive.

The first 10 verses of Ephesians 2 are epic good news. It's the Gospel in 10 verses or less - from death to life, from wrath to love. Paul paints a "Walking Dead" picture of life before Christ and then throws in those three little letters that change it all:

BUT because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ...

People who were dead and now alive? That's not business as usual. That is glory hallelujah, throw a monster party, celebrate at rock concerts freedom. It's dance in a crowd like no one's watching and tell people about it freedom, even if it doesn't feel very grown up.  

I guess, every now and then, I need to be reminded that Jesus didn't particularly gravitate toward the grown-up acting people. And if it takes a good rock concert to drive that message home, so be it.