Raising kids is hard. There are days that I’ve wondered why we decided to have kids. When I look at the world around me and all the tragedy and hatred and pure evil, I wonder why we waited so long, why I was born when I was, why we raised our kids in the US and not in some remote fishing village off the Arctic Sea, or why we aren’t living in some country where the worst we have to worry about is the bears or the lions. Some days, I’d rather face the threat of the pack of a lions than to face the demons that walk this earth and especially in America.

I heard someone once say that living in a “3rd world country” was easier than living in America. That people there pray harder for Americans than we pray for them. That person asked why that was. Their answer was that it was easier to see God where they were. God was evident in the poverty and brokenness around them. But in America, we are so blinded by lust, money, greed, sensationalism, and we are so dehumanized that even though we say we are Christians, we do not act like we have God around us at all. Even though churches are on every corner, we check in on Sundays and when we leave, we act like nothing happened. I admit, I am guilty of this. My husband is guilty of this. My children are guilty of this.

We have made changes in our day to day to make sure that our kids are very involved in church youth groups and bible studies and we have made sure that these days are dedicated to the kids for this. Not just for spending time in God’s word, but in order to build a foundation around them with friends. For my daughter, this is easier. She floats around and loves friends. She’ll make friends with the grass and she’ll openly talk about the Bible and ask questions and volunteer answers. For my son, I notice this is harder. He struggles at youth because he doesn’t have a lot in common with others. His love is music and unless he can talk about this, he struggles to make small talk. However, he loves talking about the Bible…deeply. He appreciates the life lessons, but he doesn’t volunteer a lot of information there. You have to pull these things out of him. You have to pull him TO a group. But if there’s a bible study diving deeply into the Word, he’s there. He wants to share that part, too. He’s more of an observer…and listener.

Over the last two weeks, I have felt a shift. I’m sure if you live in America, you can see it and feel it, too. But it feels larger than America. It feels like there’s a deep wound and we all feel it. Regardless of who you are, where you live, what your skin color is, what religion/non-religion you are, or any of that. I make it a point to keep the TV off. I don’t watch the news. Two weeks ago, it flooded my texts though. I was angry. I was sad. I was in shock. I was watching the videos that came across my feed and trying to figure out how to get it to stop auto-playing and I was angry that the enemy was so deeply involved. Never before have I seen such graphic videos hit the internet so quickly without some form of censorship. We have fought against censorship so hard that we got hit in the gut with what happens when censorship is removed.

My heart broke. My heart broke for our nation. My heart broke for a man. My heart broke for a wife, for two children, and for hundreds of people in a crowd who witnessed this event. In the weeks that followed, it reminded me of things that will be witnessed one day. Revelation 11, whether symbolic or literal, is going to be seen by whoever is on this earth. I thought about what those words could mean, if they are indeed literal. What will happen then? Will that be televised? Will they be closed and hidden off the best they can? I imagine they will be seen if you read all of that verse, but Revelation is such a hard book to understand so when you try to understand it and make a decision for yourself what it means, do a lot of research.

One thing I’ve really come to think about though is: what do we tell our kids? We’ve chosen to be open with our children. We’ve chosen to tell our kids what is happening. We’ve chosen to talk about how God is moving and that nothing happens without God knowing and having a plan. Words have been thrown around in the media like martyr. Verses reflecting Stephen’s martyrdom have been shared. You must be careful to cherry pick verses from the Bible. Not every verse in the Bible is written to the audience of today. We do have to remember that the Bible was written to an ancient audience with words and language towards that audience. We also have to remember that the “verses” in the Bible were not there when it was written, but it was written as an entire manuscript. To compare it, that would be like going on the internet and finding a verse that says “You should not eat meat” and taking that as complete truth without 1) the rest of the reading and 2) even the rest of the sentence. “You should not eat meat” is very different than “You should not eat meat that is raw” or “You should not eat meat that is spoiled” or “You should not eat meat if you have a feeding tube.”

It is important to read around the verses as well as to understand the context on why and when it was written…and who it was written to. Is it historical? Is it a life lesson? Is it prophetic? As parents, we can get this wrong. A lot. So we do a lot of research ourselves and we have to be careful to ensure that we are arming our kids with truth and a foundation that will help our kids not only understand the Scripture they read, but defend the Scripture they read. Listen, no one knows the Bible better than the enemy. He’s been twisting God’s word since the garden. I myself have had lots of misunderstandings about what the Bible said in certain areas until I dug further in. Take Noah’s Ark for example. Lots of pretty little things are sold with pairs of animals on them. Lots of “2 by 2” quotes. For years, I didn’t know that God said to take 7 pairs of clean animals (or the food, or anything else mentioned in those verses). I mean, it makes sense – they had to eat, but for YEARS I didn’t even think about that. All of that to say, a full understanding of Scripture and studying is important. It applies to our lives.

Looking back, I’ve come to recognize the fact that I didn’t choose to have these children. I mean, yes, we chose to have kids. We planned and tried for kids. We wanted a boy and a girl. We had certain plans for them and we wanted certain things. But, we didn’t plan the timing. We didn’t know that in 2025, videos would appear and things would be talked about that would shift our worldview. We didn’t know that our children would be exposed to this. We didn’t know that our kids would face incredible things and heartache both in the world and in friendships around them. So what do you tell them? What do you tell your kids when the world around you is rotten?

The truth. You speak life in your kids. You explain that we literally live in a fallen world. That satan himself was cast down and we live in his world. We live in a world where demons exist and desensitize us to their hellish experience. We raise our kids a strong Christian environment. They go to private school, they go to church, their friends are all Christians. We choose this for them and we find their hearts are bent to this, too. We didn’t force our kids to choose God. We educated them and just as God gave them free will, we let them choose. As a parent, that is the hardest thing you will ever wait on…waiting for your child to choose eternal life. I feel like it’s harder in today’s world because the enemy is so visible. All you have to do is turn on the TV. Or heck, just walk the halls of middle school and listen to people tearing at each other…even in a Christian school.

When we experience these things with our kids, we talk about them openly. We talk about the evil behind them and we talk about how we see God. We talk about God’s plan and we remind our children that God told us this would happen. That things are going to get rough and that’s why we have God. We talk about how God didn’t promise us an easy road and that the days, weeks, months, and years ahead are going to get nastier. We talk about how prayer is important, forgiveness is critical, and thinking before we speak is so important. As a mom, that whole “think before you speak” thing gets the best of me and I am a living example almost daily to my kids on what not to do. But, one thing my kids see in me is that I am bold enough to speak up when I am in a situation that requires it and that I will not shy away from truth. I’ve told my kids over and over, it is better to be truthful and wait for the consequences than to lie and risk the pain and punishment of the lie you told.

For my daughter, this is never more apparent than raising a middle school girl. Having walked middle school with my son, I was very aware of what happened with teenage girls as I listened to it all around him. So when it happened (and is happening) to my daughter, I remind her that this is a season. Most importantly, I remind her that when things are hurtful or overwhelming, walk away for a bit. Take a break. Find someone else to talk to. Say a prayer. Go to tutoring and spend some time there. Distance yourself from the thing that is baiting you. Close the door and don’t fall victim to what the enemy is trying to drag you into. As a mom, I’ve had to do this, too. I’ve definitely closed the door on some friendships this year not out of hate or anger, but out of necessity. I’ve shared these struggles with a couple of people and how it has impacted me and even my walk with the Lord and I heard time and time again: walk away. My heart hurt along the way, but I found that by distancing myself from the things that the devil was trying to drag me into, I found more time for myself to listen to God’s word. I found that by not being baited into petty conversations or things that didn’t involve me, I found more time to focus on what God needed me to hear.

So, what do we tell our kids?

Truth. We tell our kids the truth and we speak life into them. We tell our kids what the LORD wants us to tell them and not what our flesh wants to tell them. We don’t lie to our kids. I don’t want my kids to walk out of high school and into college and be so sheltered that the first time they are offered alcohol, they make really bad decisions. I want them to be aware of what’s coming. I want them to be prepared. They will make their own decisions, but it is my job as their mom and Richard’s job as their dad to share truth and to train them now. It doesn’t mean we don’t make mistakes. Heck, sometimes Richard and I fight so much I’m sure our kids are questioning the sanity of marriage. But, we keep telling our kids the truth. We honor commitments. We keep our oath. We work through it. This world is hard, hard, hard stuff. Our kids are going through things we didn’t go through. My TV when I was a kid wasn’t filled with school lockdowns or uncensored videos floating around the internet. My TV was filled with He-man, the Smurfs, Strawberry shortcake and Saturday morning cartoons. The rest of the time, it was off. We did chores. We did homework. We spent time with family. So for us, that’s how we’re raising our kids. A little bit of grit, truth in every moment…and a lot of Jesus.