What Does it Mean to be a Grown-up?

I began my search with Jackie Nelson, a gracious and vivacious woman I met at church about six years ago. Jackie is the type of woman whose very presence immediately allows others to relax.

She has been married since the age of 19 and has two children, Willie and Christine, who she had at 24 and 27 respectively. She and her husband, Gary, built their home in Cary. She works for Harvest Bible Chapel in Gurnee as assistant to the senior pastor.

“That’s a hard question, Brittaini.” She said to me when we met for coffee at Panera. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since you contacted me.”

In some ways, being “a grown-up” is an identity she’s only recently felt in her skin. “People always seem surprised when I tell them I’m 50,” she said with a laugh, “It’s probably because I act much younger.”

“Part of what’s made me feel like a grown up,” she said, “Is knowing what I have to give and being able to give it.”

I asked Jackie what her gifts were and she said, “I have a gift for hospitality, I’m personable and able to embrace people, I’m a good mom – I always felt like I was going to be a wife and a mom, and I’m able to share the wisdom that I have with others.” She added, “It’s taken awhile to get there.”

If knowing what we have to give and being able to give it is a key component to becoming grown-up women, what holds us back from being able to do that?

“Women are very insecure,” Jackie said. “We don’t give ourselves enough credit for the things we’re good at.” She believes that this insecurity is rooted in the ways that women compare themselves to other women. “Women put their identity in other women,” she said. “There’s still a part of me that compares, but it’s such a timewaster to live up to somebody else’s standards. You’re never going to be able to do it.”

For Jackie, her Christian faith was essential to overcoming the impulse to compare. “My identity is in the Lord,” She said. “I’m here to give God glory. I know I’m loved, and I have others to remind me of that.”

As we finish up our coffee we trade stories and updates about our families, I notice as we're talking how comfortable Jackie makes me feel, and how she seems genuinely interested in my life. I realize that she's giving that part of herself to me through our conversation, that she's defining what it means to be a grown-up with her demeanor as well as her story.  

Do you know a Cary or Fox River Grove woman whose story should be told? Is that woman you? to be featured.