When I was a young child, it was polio. It got my two-year-old sister. She was hospitalized, put in social and physical isolation. Even our parents were kept away except one visit by one parent for five minutes a week. She, they, and we were forever changed. I remember vividly being in a long line of little children getting a sugar cube put on my tongue, like a holy communion wafer, from a lady with a tense, hopeful, forced smile.
In elementary school, it was air-raid drills and the threat of atomic bombs. Shelter under your desk!
In middle school, it was the scientists’ dire warnings about global cooling and a coming ice-age.
President Kennedy, Bobby, MLKjr,
Riots, marches, hunger strikes, struggles for civil rights
Vietnam, the draft, word of lost friends
9-11
California on fire.
COVID-19

I was thinking this morning about generational traumas. I am 68 and these were mine. We all have had them, will have them. We will be impacted by all of them, remember most of them.

Take heart, parents. This – now – can make your children strong, compassionate, wise. It can give them perspective on what really matters. They’re watching and listening and processing to see how we respond – how they should respond. You have their ear like no other time. This is boot camp for the rest of life’s troubles, and we get to teach them how to find the good. Every day. That’s a silver lining. A gift. A severe mercy. As I pondered these things, these song lyrics came to mind:

“Through many dangers, toils, and snares
I have already come;
‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.
Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
and mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.
When we’ve been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’ve first begun.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.”
–John Newton, 1725-1807
[once a prominent slave trader who repented, turned to follow Christ, and ended up becoming a leading abolitionist.]