Are Children Essential: Reflections on 2020

What happens when urgency takes over what's important in our lives?

What happens when we set aside the long term picture for the short term obstacles?

2020 was a unique season for everyone, but what can we learn from it as families? When the world is seeking to protect itself from the things that are perceived as scary, urgent, dire, what are to whom are we to turn to? And what does that communicate to our children when things are tough?

For our family, we watched as the world called families to live in a space of fear rather than hope that we have in Christ. We watched as churches closed their doors for the sake of physical safety to the detriment of spiritual security in the One who has given us eternal life. Lives were stopped in the name of preservation, rather than surrendered to the Lord as "living sacrifices" as Paul says in Romans. What effect does this have on our children?

Children are always watching, they're designed that way. It's through observation that children learn and grow and they emulate what they see around them. When we say that "it's not safe to gather at church," or "it's not safe for you to continue your education right now," what's being communicated to them is that either those things aren't essential in their lives, or they themselves are not essential. Do we want our children to believe that they don't matter? Do we want our children to believe that the practice of their faith in the midst of fear is not important? Certainly it is in the tough times that those two things ought and need to be affirmed all the more.

Listen as we share our reflections on this season in our world and how it reminded us of what was truly essential for our family.