My heart has been heavy as the world continues to fold into a disarray of confusion and hatred. I find myself leaning deeper into my faith and pulling my children closer to God. It’s been a year of heartache as friendships have dissipated due to differences in beliefs. Our family remains segregated against each other over vaccinations, the way the world should be going. To mask or not to mask. I feel fear creeping into my heart as I wonder will my children have a childhood that I envisioned when I became a mother? Will they get to be carefree and full of wonder at the beauty that is God’s creation? Instead I’m left feeling like I am having to train them up to be prepared for a spiritual battle. To take on things that shouldn’t be of their concern because our society is forcing them to grow up faster than they should be. I am reminded of my Juvenile Law class, the research paper I wrote on the history of Childhood as we know it. The concept of childhood is only 100 years old. 120 now, since it’s 2021 and it was 1900s when activists began fighting for our children. Reeling it back in, I often feel that we are going backwards sometimes as a society in childhood.

So I cling to all the dreams I envision and do my best to make them come true in our home. I make their home a place of solitude. A place where they can be loud, run and not constantly made to be seen, not heard. I pray over them and with them. I bring to life in the only way I know how, a childhood free of worry, tears and fear by arming them with the word of God. “Train them up the way they should go, and never will they depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6

While it feels like I am arming my kids for battle, I guess in a way I am, but this is what we were made for. I, for one, cannot wait to watch how they set fire to the world with Jesus’s love.