Maturity.

Over the past few years, I've experienced a huge shift in my own faith, attitude, and life-perspective.  Perhaps part of it is simply a natural part of growing up.  Or perhaps part of it comes from marriage.  Or from experiencing hardships... and not having any control over certain situations (no matter how hard I've tried).  

The reasons and the timing for such things are surely different for every person, but I feel like I've developed into a completely new "me" over the past two years.  Different from my life before.  More mature, perhaps.

An oak that grew on the bank of a river was uprooted by a severe gale of wind, and thrown across the stream.  It fell among some reeds growing by the water, and said to them, "How is it that you, who are so frail and slender, have managed to weather the storm, whereas I, with all my strength, have been torn up by the roots and hurled into the river?" "You were stubborn," came the reply, "and fought against the storm, which proved stronger than you: but we bow and yield to every breeze, and thus the gale passed harmlessly over our heads."

-from Aesop's Fables

When I was young, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

-1 Corinthians 13:11