From Burden to Image Bearer: How God Changed My View of Children
I was always a sought-after babysitter. I was responsible, communicated with parents, and cared for children well. But when my younger sister and I babysat as a team, she was always the one who would get down on the floor with the kids and play games with them. She would be on their level doing the fun stuff, and I’d clean up, follow the parents’ instructions to the letter, and make sure everyone remained alive throughout the night. Although I spent countless hours babysitting, I was never one to enjoy children and delight in what delighted them.
I distinctly remember a few occasions when I told myself that I was just not a “Kid Person.” This wasn’t because I didn’t feel loved or valued as a child myself—I have always known my parents and family delighted in me and my siblings. I used to be highly bothered by crying babies on airplanes. I would struggle to tolerate children with outgoing personalities. And I never considered serving families in the nursery or children’s ministry at church. From an intellectual standpoint, I knew God said children are a gift from him (Ps. 127:3), but practically I saw them as a burden.
While in college, I signed up for a small group through my local church and met Katherine. At the time, Katherine was an English professor at the university, a deacon’s wife, and a mother of three. We bonded over our love of reading and writing, and she began inviting me into her home to hang out—while she unloaded the dishwasher and while her baby emptied out the Tupperware drawer.
Every time we got together, I sat in a chair at her kitchen table while she made muffins for the week ahead or on her couch with a bowl of ice cream while she nursed her fourth child (after her big kids went to bed). We chatted about nearly everything that was going on in our lives. We exchanged book recommendations, sorted through my dating ups and downs, and talked about the local church. I saw her interact with her husband and care for her children in real time. She never lectured or tried to change me by telling me how to live. And yet, the Lord used this young mother to shape my view of family, and parenting, and children in a drastic way by simply inviting me into her everyday life.
My love for her children began to grow, and so did my heart toward motherhood and children in general. The Lord used this family—along with other families in my church and the faithful preaching of his Word each Sunday morning—to put right before my eyes the joy of raising children to know and love God. The more I got outside my college student bubble, the closer I became with families who valued children rightly. Couples who weren’t just raising children for the self-gratification of raising “successful” kids, but because of their calling as parents who viewed their children as fellow image bearers of our Almighty God.
A year or two into my own marriage, my husband and I lost our first child in the womb. We would struggle to get pregnant for a year after that, only to have another miscarriage. Motherhood morphed from something I assumed would happen to me, into something I desperately longed for! Each month that passed by when I wasn’t pregnant again, the value of having a child in our home increased. God used this time to knock my view of children sideways—all the sudden, every child who crossed my path became a living miracle to me. After seeing a baby on an ultrasound screen but sitting in the silence of an absent heartbeat, I started thinking about the healthy hearts that were beating inside all the children walking around me. I was in awe of these living breathing miracles, and consequently, in awe of the Creator whose image they reflected.
The more involved we got in our local churches throughout the years, the more we got to witness parents disciple their children and delight in them. I started valuing the work of raising children and teaching them the things of God, and I began to recognize that children are truly a gift from the Lord. When God opened my eyes to see how he creates every human in his image—including children—I began to grasp the importance of children to God’s own heart and to his kingdom. After all, Jesus himself scolded his disciples when they tried to keep the children from him and said explicitly, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:14).
Today, the Lord has blessed our family with living biological children of our own. God has also blessed us with opportunities to disciple children at our church, pray for our friends’ children, and care about policies in our church, city, and nation that protect and affect children and families. My husband and I volunteer in the nursery in our current church, and I teach in the children’s ministry in Sunday School. I even spent a couple years as the part-time Children’s Ministry Director—a job for which the Lord used my gifts and strengths toward something that I wouldn’t have even considered doing years earlier. I deeply love these children and can’t help but want to be obedient to the Lord in teaching them his Word and showing them the heart of Jesus. I want to show compassion to all children (Ps. 103:13) and don’t want to hide God’s teaching from them, but I want to “tell the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done” (Ps. 78:4).
I also know that the way I talk about my children and parenthood can affect other people who might not currently see the value of children. God used families living their daily lives to shape my heart. I know the way my family now lives, and the way I talk about motherhood, can be a testament to others who might not care for children the way God does. Christian families would do well to intentionally invite others to share in their everyday lives.
I love having conversations with my toddlers and delighting in what delights them. I can’t help but marvel at the miracle of their beating hearts. I consider it a privilege to spend my days playing hide-and-seek with them, praying with and for them, and teaching them the things of God. I give a huge smile and a word of encouragement to every single parent of a young child I encounter on an airplane. Simply put, I love children and think each one is a giant, generous gift from God that not one of us deserves.
If the Triune God can raise dead hearts to life in him and open the eyes of the blind, he can also shape our hearts and minds to be more like Christ—which includes softening our hearts toward children. Jesus cares about children. They are not a hindrance or a burden but are made in the very image of our good and gracious God.
Lainee Oliver lives in North Alabama with her husband and two children. She studied Public Relations and English at Auburn University and cares deeply about the local church. Lainee enjoys putting to work her love for reading, writing, and editing in the margins of full and happy days at home with her children.