How many of us have grown up confused about who we were made to be and our purpose on this earth? If not you, I’m sure you can think of someone you know needing help in this area. Perhaps they suffer with feeling rejected, feeling confused about their future, feeling that God cannot use them—even though they can see God’s purpose in those around them. We can’t possibly narrow down all the reasons, events, and lies that have led up to this kind of mindset, but we can go to God’s Word and find out how we as parents, authority figures, peers, and ultimately, brothers and sisters can reveal truth in the midst of confusion.

What if we started from the very beginning, from the very first powerful words spoken to and over a child, training their body, soul, and spirit which way to go and believe? What if we simply started today to purpose loving our kids—and all those around us—with the truth of who they were created to be? Even if their actions and attitudes are… well…off—whether they are wrong or just unfamiliar to our paradigms—we must still purpose to love them for who they were created to be, and trust God with His unique creation. If we begin to realize that His vision for those around us is outside of our control and natural understanding…then we are on the right path—yielded to God expressing and doing above all we could think or imagine.

Begin to ask the Holy Spirit what He has put inside your little one, so you can begin to see them and their expressions of who they are as He sees them. Begin to value their strengths—whether they are surrendered yet to the Holy Spirit or not—and bless what God is doing in them and the purposes He created them for. Realize that we are all one part of the body, and as the eye may not understand what the hand is doing, it can value the hand even in its growing process of being surrendered to God’s headship. Speak words of truth and building up, no matter what it looks like, to nurture and affirm God’s Word and what He is doing in them, and how He is drawing them into His plan. Be like the sun to your little flowers, and watch them bloom and grow towards truth and acceptance of who they are in Christ, and who God has purposed them to be. It may not be easy, but there is help—even to accept and give grace to ourselves—as we are connected in the vine.

“So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).