mandy inchaustegui

Anthony and I have been talking about parenting a lot lately and the vision and hope that we have for our kids and family. Part of our vision is that we are intentionally living in the city of Los Angeles in order to be a voice of hope in a place where there’s a lot of darkness and despair. As our kids get older, and interact more with the culture around them, there is a new temptation to want to shelter our kids, keeping them from knowing all that we know they will see and know.

I, myself, have a hard time handling being around all the darkness sometimes. The graffiti, the people yelling at each other, the smell of pot, the homeless woman cooking and doing her laundry on the side of the road, the weary faces of the sick or unemployed.

And that’s just a normal day walking down the street outside our home.

There are also the very real and honest conversations that are shared with us of awful things that happen to people, especially children, in this world as Anthony and I have the honor of leading the Celebrate Recovery ministry at our church. We are not in any way naïve to the darkness that is happening all the time, all around us. I'm an adult, hopefully with skills to be able to process all of this, and manage my own emotions in the process. But even then, it gets to me sometimes and becomes extremely overwhelming.

We don’t share all of the details with our kids. But they, too, are not naïve to the hurt and pain of this world. They see it every day, in the face of the stranger and also in the friend they love. There's a part of me that worries how they will process it all, not wanting to crush their spirit in any way. Yet, I want them to know truth. And this means that they have to know that there darkness exists in order for them to fully know the beauty, power and goodness of the light.

There are moments when I just want to keep them from all of it, holding onto their innocence, sheltering them from the ugliness of this world.

But this is my ultimate conclusion.

I do not want to shelter my kids, keeping them from the knowledge of bad things. Most days, to be honest, it’s pretty unavoidable.

Instead, I want to create a shelter with them, having our family and home be a safe place for hurting people to come and find love, grace and peace.

This means that we, ourselves, have to be healthy, connected to God and living love and grace and peace. We are currently really trying hard to work on being this.

It may seem risky, and it probably is more than I realize, but, in faith, we intentionally expose our kids to the realities of this world, both the lovely and ugly parts. And we talk about ALL of it. We talk about compassion. We talk about God’s heart for people. We talk about His power to heal...everything.

Ultimately, we talk about our role in that – and choose to create and be a shelter for others. It’s so beautiful to do this WITH our kids and not just FOR them.

May our family be a shelter where people who are hurting will experience the love of Jesus.