A Formation Story
Growing older happens with time.
It is measured in years,
marked by milestones,
recognized by the world.
You move forward.
You accumulate.
You adapt.
And if you do it well,
it looks like maturity.
But growing up…
Growing up happens in a moment.
A real one.
The moment you choose
what you will carry.
For me, that moment came early.
I was twelve
when I first faced mortality.
Not as an idea—
but as something close enough
to change how I saw everything.
A misdiagnosed illness
that made life feel fragile
before I had the language to name it.
And in that moment,
something surfaced.
Not from outside—
but from within.
My grandmother had passed something to me
long before I understood it.
Not instruction.
Not belief.
A spark.
The kind that doesn’t explain itself.
The kind that doesn’t ask permission.
The kind that simply waits
to be carried.
And in the presence of mortality,
I saw it.
Not as comfort—
but as direction.
I knew then
who I wanted to be
when I grew up.
Not successful.
Not impressive.
But a man like the Jesus
my grandmother spoke of.
Present.
Unbound.
True.
I didn’t have language for it.
But I made a choice.
I chose what I would carry.
And maybe that’s why
I was called an “old soul” as a child.
Not because I had lived more life—
but because something in me
had already decided how to live.
At the time, I thought
growing older would explain it.
That time would eventually shape me
into that choice.
But now, as I grow older,
I’m beginning to see the truth more clearly.
I didn’t grow up over time.
I grew up in a moment.
And what I’m beginning to understand is this:
That moment wasn’t rare.
It didn’t belong to me alone.
These moments find all of us.
Not always as clearly.
Not always as early.
But they come.
Sometimes through fracture—
when something breaks open
and we are forced to see
what we can no longer ignore.
Sometimes through fusion—
when something meets us so deeply
that we recognize truth
without needing to understand it.
Different paths.
Same invitation.
A moment
where you see clearly enough
to choose
what you will carry.
Most of us don’t name it when it happens.
Some of us move past it.
Some of us forget.
Some of us spend years
returning to it
without realizing
it was already there.
But that moment—
that is where growing up begins.
Not over time.
But in truth.
Everything after that
is just whether we live it.
Growing older gave me years.
Growing up gave me direction.
And formation…
formation is not becoming something else.
It is remembering the moment
you first chose—
and having the courage
to carry it
as time unfolds.