This Is Their Childhood

This is their childhood. Interpreting smiles and moods and souls through eyes alone. They will be a hundred times better at it than we are, their radar for what’s really inside a person more in tune than ours could ever be. I count this wisdom a gift, one I could have never taught them so well with only my words.
The value of touch will be amplified for them. Their time spent with the distance of such a thing helping them to understand the gift in it and that taking the time to wrap arms around someone sometimes has profound impact.
Their inability to touch the objects they would normally reach for forcing their minds to grow and expand in imagination.
Their childhood being molded by masks and shields and discussions that have impact beyond their age.
This is their childhood.
And yet. They are still that. Wonderful, bubbling, joyful children. Laughing, and screaming and running. Fighting and playing. Jumping and clapping. Pure and wonderful. Brave and solid. Strapping on their masks right after the straps of their book bags are secure. They take off full force into a world that is new. Brave, undaunted. Loved fully. The goodness left amongst us all.
This is their childhood. The fruit of it yet to be seen, but from the dirt of disruption and chaos, fear and unknown will come strength and wisdom, love for the broken, and fullness of life. Minds forced to wander through the things of adults will land on ideas that will impact us all.
This is their childhood, and God is using it. The masks are not stealing their childhood, they are simply adding to it. Adding depth and wonder. Sadness and joy. All the things that make a life.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
Romans 8: 28
And parents. Make no mistake. They are each and every one called. They each have a purpose. One placed in them specifically before He formed the earth. This childhood they are living, it is not their detriment. It is a part of their calling.
~Kalan