Do We Worry About Our Children?

Sarah and Josiah are playing on the living room floor together- Josiah rolling around and chewing on toys while Sarah chases him and makes those same toys into hats for his head. It touches my heart to see it because I was made in the image of a God who sees children (red, yellow, black, and white) as precious in His sight. You were made like Him too, which is why neither of us can stop looking at all those pictures of babies on Facebook.

We live in a small New England village not unlike the one you see on the news these days. Our children are unaware that a mad gunman could have just as easily chosen our picturesque Christmas Village Stroll over a quaint elementary school yesterday. But we're aware. As Osterville lit up like a Norman Rockwell painting last night, you could tell everyone was keeping a closer eye on their children. What if he'd come here instead? It's a scary thought. Were God not with me, I couldn't bear it.

It's hard to think or write about yesterday's shooting. It's the sort of event that reveals our hearts. Is yours willing to question or judge God? You may know a little better now from your response yesterday. But there's a difference between a judgmental, "How could He?", and a childlike, "I don't understand."

We don't understand the whole answer, but it begins and ends with a little baby, one we're all thinking about this time of year. He faced the cold of the night without a home as soon as he drew his breath, fled to Egypt to escape the rage of a king, and then grew up to promise us that, while we would be delivered over to death, not a hair on our heads would perish. He didn't just promise that, he lived it. He was, like yesterday's children, delivered over to an unjust and undeserved death. His was on a criminal's cross, the kind normally reserved for school shooters.

Could you trust Jesus if the story ended there? No, it would have proved all His promises empty. "He saved others, let him save himself!", the crowd shouted, as if the cross proved his defeat. But they were wrong. Once the stone rolled away and the earth shook, we saw the truth- not a hair on his head perished. He was risen.

It's also hard to trust God with our children if we see life's story ending at death. "He still can't save others!", the crowd will shout. But once again they will be wrong. We will see it when all of us who died with Christ rise with him, not one hair on our heads having perished.

How confident can we be that yesterday's twenty children will be there, risen with us? The scriptures stop one half step before giving complete assurance, but they do tell us comforting news. First, they remind us that God can change even the heart of a fetus when the unborn John leaps in his mother's womb as she nears Mary and the unborn Jesus. He can save the children we've lost to miscarriage in the same way, by giving them a new heart which loves Jesus and is sensitive to his presence. That sounds like a miracle, and it is. But it's no more miraculous than the day He saved me. I was as capable of real faith as a 4-cell zygote the day before God saved me, except that my heart was harder.

Then we're taught time and time again that God especially loves children (and that Satan especially hates them). Jesus calls the children to come to him and tells us to have faith like theirs while Satan has pharaohs and kings hunt them down with the sword. God spares the Israelite children in the desert when their parents rebel, while demon-gods require the Canaanites to sacrifice their own children. Then God sends His own Son to earth as, of all things, a baby boy. He spreads His love for children all over His pages, and then makes us in His image, with a soft spot for children in our own hearts.

He loves them, can save them, and will always do what is right. We don't have a handy proof-text that guarantees our children's salvation. If we did, we'd probably abuse it. But what God reveals about himself in the Bible gives us great hope for our children. And there is one thing that He does assure us: that He is trustworthy. You can trust Him with them, He will do right, and you will praise Him for it in Heaven. Fear not.

A horrific death was part of God's plan for His own Son, and that doesn't mean God didn't love Him. Could it be His plan for my son or for my daughter? Could their path toward exaltation look frighteningly like His? I pray that instead they will die old in a warm bed, but I trust Him in whatever path He has for them.

He is good, He is just, and He loves especially the little children of the World.