The Sacred Patience of Becoming: Why Children Deserve Time, Not Labels

 There are moments in every generation when culture speaks loudly, urgently, and with great confidence, while wisdom speaks quietly and waits to be heard. This is one of those moments. When conversations about identity move faster than the lives they affect, faith has a responsibility not to shout back, but to slow the room down. Especially when children are involved.

Children are not problems to be solved. They are people to be protected.

From the beginning of Scripture, childhood is treated as a sacred season, not a finished state. Children are described as gifts, arrows, blessings, and entrusted lives. They are never described as completed identities. They are always described as becoming. That distinction matters more than our culture seems willing to admit right now.

Faith has always understood something that modern urgency often forgets: growth takes time, and time is not the enemy of truth. It is the environment where truth matures.

When people say there is no such thing as a “trans child,” what they are pointing toward, at its most faithful and humane expression, is not denial of emotion or dismissal of pain. It is the recognition that children live in a developmental season where feelings are real but fluid, questions are sincere but unfinished, and self-understanding is forming, not fixed.

A child saying, “I feel different,” is not announcing a destiny. They are expressing an experience.

A child saying, “I don’t feel comfortable,” is not rejecting reality. They are describing an internal moment.

Faith does not hear those statements and rush to rewrite a life. Faith listens. Faith stays. Faith waits.

One of the most consistent patterns in Scripture is that God reveals identity through relationship, not labels. He does not rush people into conclusions about themselves. He meets them where they are and walks with them as they grow. Abraham did not understand his calling when he was first called. Moses resisted identity when it was first spoken over him. David lived years between anointing and understanding. Growth was not an interruption to God’s plan; it was the plan.

Even Jesus, in His humanity, was described as growing in wisdom and stature. If growth was honored in the life of Christ, how can it be treated as a problem in the life of a child?

Children exist in a season of intense imagination, emotional amplification, and social imitation. This is not dysfunction; it is development. They borrow language from the world around them. They test ideas before they understand them. They experiment with roles long before they grasp consequences. That is not evidence of brokenness. It is evidence of learning.

Faith does not fear that process. Faith protects it.

One of the most dangerous assumptions we can make is that a child’s feelings require immediate resolution rather than careful accompaniment. The idea that uncertainty must be solved quickly is not wisdom; it is adult anxiety projected onto young minds. Children do not need urgency. They need security.

Security does not come from answers. It comes from presence.

Scripture repeatedly warns against burdening children with weights they were never meant to carry. Jesus’ language about children is unusually direct. He speaks of protection, responsibility, and accountability for those who influence them. He never treats children as ideological battlegrounds. He treats them as lives that must be guarded with reverence.

That reverence demands restraint.

Restraint does not mean ignoring struggle. It means refusing to turn struggle into identity before maturity has done its work. Feelings are powerful, but they are not sovereign. They inform us; they do not define us. Adults learn this slowly, often painfully. Children are still learning what adults already know: that feelings change, understanding deepens, and perspective widens with time.

To place a permanent identity on a child based on temporary internal states is not affirmation. It is abdication of adult responsibility. It shifts the burden of meaning-making from those with wisdom to those without experience.

Faith calls adults to do the opposite.

Adults are meant to be anchors, not accelerators. They are meant to provide stability when emotions surge, not pressure to decide when uncertainty appears. A child does not need to be told who they are in moments of confusion. They need to be reminded that they are loved regardless of confusion.

Love that rushes is not love. It is fear disguised as compassion.

The body, according to Scripture, is not incidental. It is not a mistake waiting to be corrected. It is described as purposeful, meaningful, and good. That does not mean every experience in the body is easy. It does not mean discomfort never exists. It means that embodiment itself is not an error.

Children do not need to be taught that their bodies are problems. They need to be taught that their bodies are part of a story still unfolding.

Faith teaches patience not because it avoids truth, but because it trusts truth to endure. If something is true, it does not require haste to protect it. If something is real, it does not need urgency to secure it. Truth can afford time.

Children deserve that gift.

They deserve time to grow without being locked into adult categories they cannot yet evaluate. They deserve space to ask questions without being handed conclusions. They deserve adults who are calm enough to wait and strong enough to stay.

This is where faith must speak clearly and gently at the same time.

There is no such thing as a “trans child” not because children never experience confusion, discomfort, or distress, but because childhood itself is a season of becoming, not arriving. To label a child as if they have reached a final destination is to misunderstand the very nature of childhood.

Children are not late. They are early.

They are not broken. They are growing.

They are not behind. They are exactly where they are supposed to be.

Faith does not deny the reality of pain. It refuses to define a person by their pain. Faith does not erase struggle. It contextualizes it within a larger story. And for children, that larger story is still being written.

When a child expresses distress, the faithful response is not ideological alignment or rejection. It is relational faithfulness. It is staying present, asking gentle questions, offering reassurance, and providing stability without imposing narratives.

Children need adults who can say, “You are safe with me,” without adding, “and therefore you must decide who you are right now.”

Safety is the soil where identity grows best.

When culture demands immediate answers, faith offers enduring love. When the world rushes to define, faith waits to understand. When noise escalates, faith lowers its voice and stays close.

That is not weakness. That is wisdom.

Faith has always known that human identity is not discovered in moments of pressure, but in seasons of trust. Children do not need to carry the weight of adult certainty. They need the shelter of adult patience.

And perhaps the most faithful thing we can offer a child in a loud, divided world is this simple assurance: you do not have to figure everything out today. You are allowed to grow. You are allowed to change. You are allowed to take your time.

God is not in a hurry.

And neither should we be.

…because the faith that endures is never frantic.

One of the quiet tragedies of our moment is that we have confused urgency with care. We have mistaken speed for compassion. We have allowed the loudest voices to convince us that if we do not act immediately, we are somehow failing those who are vulnerable. But faith has never operated on panic. Faith operates on trust.

Trust that truth does not expire.

Trust that love does not require haste.

Trust that God is not threatened by process.

Children, especially, live inside process. Every stage of childhood exists for a reason. Cognitive development, emotional regulation, self-perception, social awareness—none of these arrive fully formed. They unfold. They are practiced. They mature through repetition, safety, and guidance. To interrupt that process by demanding conclusions is not progressive; it is premature.

There is a reason Scripture repeatedly pairs children with words like instruction, training, nurture, and growth. These words assume time. They assume patience. They assume the presence of adults who are willing to bear the weight so children do not have to.

When adults insist that a child must define themselves in the midst of confusion, what they are really saying—often without realizing it—is that the adults themselves cannot tolerate uncertainty. But children are not responsible for resolving adult discomfort. Adults are responsible for creating environments where children can remain children.

Faith understands this intuitively.

Faith knows that identity solidifies through lived experience, not internal pressure. It forms through relationships, through boundaries, through feedback, through love that stays consistent even when emotions fluctuate. It is shaped by time spent being known, not time spent being labeled.

The tragedy is not that children ask questions. The tragedy is when adults respond with irreversible answers to reversible moments.

Jesus never rushed people into self-definition. He invited them into relationship. He asked questions. He told stories. He allowed people to walk with Him long before they understood who He was—or who they were becoming. His patience was not passivity. It was intentional restraint rooted in love.

When faith says children deserve time, it is not saying struggle should be ignored. It is saying struggle should be held, not hurried.

A child who feels out of place is not announcing a final identity. They are signaling a need for belonging.

A child who feels discomfort is not rejecting reality. They are asking for understanding.

A child who feels confused is not broken. They are developing.

Faith answers these realities not by declaring conclusions, but by strengthening foundations. Stability comes before self-concept. Safety comes before self-labeling. Love comes before language.

One of the most damaging lies children can absorb is that feelings must be resolved immediately to be valid. This lie teaches children to distrust patience, to fear uncertainty, and to believe that discomfort is dangerous rather than informative. Faith offers a better story.

Faith teaches that discomfort can be a teacher without becoming a dictator. It teaches that feelings are signals, not commands. It teaches that time reveals what pressure obscures.

Children need adults who can sit with complexity without collapsing into conclusions.

This is where courage is required.

It takes courage to resist cultural pressure. It takes courage to say, “Not yet,” when the world demands “now.” It takes courage to protect children from adult agendas—no matter how well-intentioned those agendas claim to be.

Faith calls for that courage because it is rooted in something deeper than approval. It is rooted in reverence.

Reverence for childhood.

Reverence for development.

Reverence for the image of God unfolding slowly in a human life.

Children are not blank slates to be written on by ideology. They are not puzzles to be solved by language. They are souls entrusted to us for safekeeping while they grow into understanding.

That responsibility should sober us.

The moment we stop asking, “What does this child need right now?” and start asking, “What does this moment demand of me?” is the moment we lose our footing. Faith always asks the first question. It always centers the child, not the argument.

Children need consistency more than clarity.

They need reassurance more than resolution.

They need adults who are willing to walk slowly.

When adults remain steady, children learn that uncertainty is survivable. When adults remain present, children learn that confusion does not equal abandonment. When adults remain patient, children learn that growth is allowed.

This is how faith forms resilient humans.

We must also be honest about something else: children are profoundly influenced by the expectations placed upon them. When adults frame identity as something that must be declared early, children learn to perform certainty rather than explore truth. They learn to protect labels rather than examine experiences. They learn to fear changing their minds.

Faith never teaches fear of growth.

Faith teaches that growth is evidence of life.

The most compassionate posture toward children is not to lock them into definitions, but to keep doors open. Open doors allow maturity to enter. Locked doors force decisions to harden before wisdom arrives.

This is why patience is not neutral—it is moral. It is an act of love that says, “I will not rush you into becoming something you are still learning to understand.”

Children do not need adults to validate every feeling as destiny. They need adults who can validate their humanity without predetermining their future.

That distinction is everything.

To say there is no such thing as a “trans child” is not to deny the complexity of human experience. It is to affirm the sacredness of childhood development. It is to say that no child should be told their story is already finished when it has barely begun.

Faith believes that identity emerges through faithful presence, not hurried conclusions.

And faith believes something else that is deeply countercultural: that love does not require us to redefine reality to prove our compassion. Love can tell the truth gently. Love can wait. Love can protect without panicking.

Children deserve that kind of love.

They deserve adults who are strong enough to say, “You are not a problem to solve.”

They deserve adults who can say, “You do not owe the world an answer right now.”

They deserve adults who can say, “You are allowed to grow.”

Perhaps one of the most powerful gifts faith can offer in this moment is the restoration of trust in time. Time is not an enemy. It is not neglect. It is not avoidance. It is the space where understanding matures and wisdom takes root.

God works in seasons, not shortcuts.

Seeds are not rushed. They are planted, watered, protected, and allowed to emerge when ready. Children are no different. They do not bloom on command. They unfold according to rhythms that demand patience from those entrusted with their care.

When we honor those rhythms, we participate in something holy.

When we violate them, even with good intentions, we risk harm.

Faith calls us back to the long view. It reminds us that a child’s future is not endangered by patience, but by pressure. It reminds us that love is not measured by how quickly we respond, but by how faithfully we remain.

The question before us is not whether children experience confusion. They always have. The question is whether adults will be wise enough to respond without rushing to define what only time can clarify.

Faith answers that question with humility.

Humility to admit we do not need all the answers now.

Humility to trust that growth will reveal what pressure cannot.

Humility to protect children from adult certainty that outpaces understanding.

In the end, the most faithful response to a child navigating uncertainty is not to assign identity, but to offer assurance.

You are loved without condition.

You are safe without labels.

You are allowed to grow without being hurried.

You are not behind.

You are not broken.

You are becoming.

And becoming takes time.

That is not denial.

That is devotion.

That is faith refusing to sacrifice children on the altar of urgency.

And it is, perhaps, the clearest expression of love we can offer in a world that has forgotten how sacred childhood truly is.

Truth.
God bless you.
Bye bye.

Your friend,
Douglas Vandergraph

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