By Ms. Marnai Boose
Challenge Teacher + FIRST LEGO League Coach
During Mass today, our priest offered a simple line that has stayed with me far longer than many homilies do. He said, “God does not always come to us as a big, booming voice. He came to us as a child.”
Not as thunder.
Not as a spectacle.
Not as power.
As a child.
For those of us who live and work among children every day—parents, teachers, grandparents, coaches—this truth should stop us in our tracks. Because if God chose to reveal Himself to the world as a child, then perhaps the children around us are not just entrusted to us. Perhaps they are, in a real and mysterious way, revealing something of God to us.
Children as Reflections of God, Not Just Recipients of Care
In Christian theology, we often speak of children as gifts from God. But Scripture goes further. Children are not only gifts from God. They are also reflections of God. Jesus Himself tells us, “Unless you become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3)
He does not say, “care for children”—though we must.
He says, “learn from them.”
Children reveal to us trust before skepticism, wonder before cynicism, joy before calculation, and hope before fear.
In the classroom, I see this daily. A child who believes she can still learn after failing. A child who forgives quickly. A child who delights in discovering something new. A child who asks questions adults are too cautious to ask.
These are not small spiritual qualities.
These are kingdom qualities.
What Research Tells Us about the Sacred Work of Nurturing Children
Modern research, perhaps unintentionally, affirms what faith has always taught: that childhood is not a waiting room for adulthood, but a sacred season that shapes the entire person. Developmental science shows us that:
- Early relationships shape a child’s lifelong capacity for trust and resilience (see the Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University).
- A child’s sense of being valued and seen is one of the strongest predictors of long-term academic and emotional success.
- Adults who respond with warmth, consistency, and high expectations help children develop both competence and character.
In other words, how we see children changes who they become.
When we see them primarily as problems to manage, behaviors to correct, test scores to raise, or inconveniences to endure, we shrink them.
But when we see them as persons made in the image of God, souls in formation, works still being written by the Author Himself, we teach differently. We parent differently.
We love differently.
The Quiet Ways God Comes to Us through Children
What struck me most about Father’s words was this:
God does not always come loudly.
He comes quietly.
And in schools and homes, He often comes disguised as the child who is difficult to teach; the child who is slow to learn; the child who is anxious, angry, or withdrawn; or the child who tests our patience and exposes our limits. These are often the children who teach us the most about humility, endurance, compassion, and the kind of love that costs something.
A Student-First Way of Seeing
In education today, we talk often about being “student-centered.” But there is a deeper version of this. There is the God-centered view of the child. The God-centered view of the child is this: we value dignity before data; we see potential before performance; we protect childhood before accelerating it; we form character before measuring outcomes.
This does not mean lowering standards. On the contrary, when we truly believe a child is a gift of God, we hold them to high expectations, teach them with excellence, discipline with justice and mercy, and we refuse to give up on them.
Because gifts are not disposable.
They are entrusted.
An Invitation to See Differently
Perhaps the invitation from that simple homily is this:
The next time we encounter a child—in our classroom, our home, our parish, our grocery store—
Before we correct . . .
Before we rush . . .
Before we label . . .
Before we sigh in exhaustion . . .
We pause.
And we remember:
This is not merely a child.
This is someone through whom God may be quietly speaking.
Not in thunder . . .
Not in spectacle . . .
But in trust . . .
In wonder . . .
In small hands reaching upward.
God once chose to come to us as a child.
Perhaps He still does.