In these seasons of crisis, in our all-important busyness, there is often a subtle temptation to overlook the precious little lives that dwell in our very homes.
You’re not the only one feeling the press. Little eyes, little ears, little bodies and tender souls are doing their best to process this COVID-19 experience alongside their parents – with far fewer tools. Try as we might to conceal it from them, a new “homeschool life,” coupled with a new “work-from-home-world,” or worse, a “no-work-at-all-world” – positions often anxious children in full view of life’s troubling complications. While we likely have ways of processing the noise, it’s entirely possible that our children might be overlooked in the missionary equation that lies before them.
On one hand, this is to be expected. There is, after all, a lot to do in these days. For most, the volume of work and responsibility has not slowed down, but rather has found a new and higher gear. Work that once took minutes in the office, now takes much of the day in divided attention. There’s also church life to attend to. There are burdens to bear, video meetings to coordinate, people to love. Then there’s the mission that we’re called to embrace. People are dying, others are ill, still others grieving for economic loss or mental health setbacks. We know that we must attend to these needs and both declare and demonstrate the Good News with the hope Jesus brings.
But in these seasons of crisis, in our all-important busyness, there is often a subtle temptation to overlook the precious little lives that dwell in our very homes. We often forget that they are processing, perhaps for the first time, life in a broken world. They are coming to grips with a world where things like an invisible bug can wreak such havoc, and where death and destruction are suddenly normative …