There is a particular kind of ache that settles in the heart of a parent these days. It’s the quiet dread that creeps in while scrolling headlines: wars raging in lands both far and familiar, children displaced, the rising tide of hatred, genocide and persecution, and the looming question: What kind of world are we raising our children in?
Sometimes it feels like the weight of it all is too much, and it’s quite easy to give in to despair. You look at your child’s innocent face and wonder how you’ll protect that light in a world so dark.
And yet, somehow, we keep going.
Not because we’re naive. Not because we’re blind to the suffering. But because, for many of us, there’s something deeper anchoring us amid the chaos: faith and hope.
Faith: Not an escape but a grounding
There’s a misconception that faith is a way to escape reality, a naive optimism that says, “Everything will be fine if I just believe hard enough.” But real faith, living, breathing, tested-through-fire faith, isn’t about avoiding the truth of pain and suffering. It’s about walking into it with eyes wide open, while holding a deeper truth in one hand.
Faith doesn’t pretend there aren’t wars, or that injustice won’t touch us. Faith says: Even if the mountains crumble into the sea, I will not be shaken, because I know Who holds the Earth in place and I know I was picked for this time, even if the reasons why aren’t something I can understand right now.
In parenting, this means we show up every day in love—not because the world deserves it, but because our children do and because God is still good, even when the world isn’t.
Sometimes, when things feel especially heavy, we forget that He walks with us. But as the beloved poem “Footprints in the Sand” reminds us, even when we can’t see Him, even when there’s only one set of footprints in the storm we’re living, it’s not because He’s left us. It’s because He’s carrying us through.
That’s what grounding faith really is: not an escape from suffering, but the assurance that we’re never walking through it alone.
Hope: Not naive but revolutionary
It’s easy to confuse hope with wishful thinking. But hope, in the context of deep trust in something greater than ourselves, is a radical act. In a cynical age, to believe that good can still be born, that healing is still possible and that peace can emerge from ashes isn’t naive. That is true courage.
It takes courage to hope when you’re raising kids in an era of climate issues, polarization, war and global trauma. But when our hope is rooted in something eternal, it isn’t easily undone.
In the Christian tradition, hope isn’t just a feeling, it’s a virtue. That means it’s something we practice, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard. It’s a muscle we strengthen every time we choose to look for light instead of giving in to despair, and it takes an act of great surrender and trust that doesn’t come easily to us.
Children: Not burdens but beacons
It’s tempting, when things feel bleak, to fall into fear about the future our children will inherit. But what if we flipped the script? What if, instead of fearing the future for them, we trusted that they were born for it?
You’ve probably heard this quote attributed to Esther, from the Old Testament’s Book of Esther: “Perhaps you were born for such a time as this.” (Esther 4:14). What if our children were, too?
Not to carry the burden of saving the world, but to be part of its healing. And since we can’t predict the future, this stands as an encouraging reminder that God places individuals in specific situations for a purpose.
When we root our parenting in faith, we start to see our children not just as people to be protected, but as people called for a purpose. We begin to trust that God knew what He was doing when He sent them into this moment in history.
And maybe that changes the way we parent (or at least allows us to see things from a new perspective). It reminds us that we don’t have to parent from a place of fear, but from a place of hope and freedom. We go from defensiveness to discipleship. From panic to conviction.
Faith reminds us we’re not alone
One of the most paralyzing lies of parenting in hard times is that it’s all up to us. We have to fix everything, be everything, do everything and know everything.
Faith interrupts that lie with this truth: You are not alone.
You aren’t parenting in your own strength. You aren’t raising your children in isolation. God goes before you. He walks beside you and gives you strength and grace where our weaknesses, as human beings, abound. He’s already in the future you’re afraid of.
Prayer becomes more than a last resort—it becomes a lifeline. Not because it changes the headlines (though sometimes it does), but because it changes us. When we pray, we remember that this story is bigger than us. That love is stronger than death. That the arc of history ultimately bends towards redemption, even if that redemption comes slowly and sometimes painfully.
Small acts of faith in uncertain times
We may not be able to end wars or heal every wound. But we can do something just as powerful: we can love deeply, raise our children well and cultivate small gardens of peace in our homes and communities.
We can show our children how to pray, how to forgive, how to speak up and stand firm in truth, justice and kindness. We can teach them where real strength comes from; not from power or control, but from the resilience of a heart anchored in what is just and good.
These small acts of faithfulness? They ripple. They matter. They become part of the invisible scaffolding holding up a weary world. This faith doesn’t make our children immune to fear, but rather, it helps build a foundation on which they can overcome their fears and become beacons of light for future generations.
And that changes everything. So if you’re feeling weary today, if parenting feels like walking through fire while carrying someone else on your back, take heart.
Keep going. Keep loving. Keep planting hope like seeds. Because even in the darkest soil, hope can still grow.
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