Shelter: The Difference in a Bubble and a Greenhouse

 

 

March 2026

 

Last summer I decided it was time to pull out my old CDs from high school. I have saved them all, and driving a minivan old enough to still have a CD player installed paid off. I got to introduce my kids to the music of my youth.

 

One of my favorite artists from my teenage years is Jaci Velasquez. I don’t know exactly what drew me, perhaps her youth or her distinctiveness, but I knew most of the lyrics to her songs by heart. Surprisingly, as her music filled my vehicle over twenty years later, most of the words came wafting back, transporting me back to an earlier time of starburst facial wash and whipped cream coated coffee drinks.

 

The chorus from one song in particular resonated differently this time though. As I listened, the music was a little too rocky for my current indie affinity, but the lyrics captured me.

“Shelter me. The ways of the world are at my feet. Shelter me. You are the fortress I need. Shelter me.”

 

 

When I listened to those words as a girl slowly (more slowly than I sometimes wished) transforming into a young woman, I applied the lyrics to myself. Now, as a mother listening, I cannot help but apply them to my children.

 

The ways of the world are truly at our children’s feet. They are offered enticements of every sort, ranging from seemingly innocent entrapments of childhood such as sugary treats and battery-operated gadgets to sinister snares such as pornography that pops up on a children’s website or alternative lifestyle promotions that appear in their children and adolescent books and movies.

 

And all I want to do is protect them. I want to be large enough to spread out my arms and cover them from all that seeks to steal their innocence and their joy.

 

Yet, I cannot.

 

In the amount of time it has taken for my girls to have a restroom break during a dance class, a fellow dancer (also a child) has spoken of inappropriate concepts to them and stolen a bit of their innocence.

 

Even as we as parents seek to shield them, their innocence is breached through bumper stickers they read at red lights, commercials that pop up during what we expected to be a family friendly football game, and chatter the neighbors bring into our yard.

 

Sometimes the answer seems to be to retreat, to withdraw as much as possible from anything that may corrupt. And yet, babies don’t keep. We know deep down that our job is to prepare them for the world, including its hardships and even its ugliness.

 

I love Jaci’s lyrics because as opposed to it being about trying to shelter ourselves or to shelter others, the lyrics recognize that God is our only true shelter. “Shelter me. The ways of the world are at my feet.”

 

He has always promised to be our shelter.

 

“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1)

 

“You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in their distress,
a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat” (Isaiah 25:4.)

 

It can be tempting to cloak our children in bubble wrap and stand guard, swatting away anything that dares come close enough to penetrate. Yet such an approach offers few strategies for engagement once the bubble finally pops. And more than likely, it will indeed pop.

 

I prefer the analogy of a greenhouse. I try to put my children in a curated environment where they are cultivated and cared for. I am careful about their friends, their entertainment, and their activities. Yet, the goal for the plants in the greenhouse is not to have them remain there indefinitely. The goal is that they can be transplanted elsewhere and thrive because their root system has been carefully developed.

 

Though I am tempted to just ignore the unfortunate comment made while we are in a social setting or tell my kids to turn away from the words etched inside of the bathroom stall door, having a conversation about the fallenness of the world and how to respond as a believer gives them some practice for what they will all too soon face on their own. Now is the time to help them grow roots that will survive the transplant.

 

Covering their eyes only teaches them to peek through the cracks between my fingers. Applying blocks and firewalls to technology without the dialogue about why and what’s out there may only lead to eventual shock and perhaps unbridled curiosity. I want to show them how to turn their own eyes away as an act of stewardship of their own hearts and minds.

 

I cannot always shelter them, so I want nothing more than to show them the blessing of seeking shelter under Jesus’ protection. After all, he has experienced all the temptations that are common to man. The devil came to Jesus in the wilderness and offered him not only earthly comfort but a way aside from the cross. There is no more real example of “the ways of the world are at my feet.” Yet Jesus resisted because he found shelter in his Father.

 

And what happened next never fails to bring tears to my eyes. The Father sent angels to minister to his son, to care for his body, so weak from physical fatigue but also from the spiritual battle he had so valiantly fought and won (Matthew 4:1-11).

 

Our children may not always perfectly resist temptation. The reality is that many will at some point click onto the website, try the substance, or say yes when they should say no. But it will not be too late to seek shelter. The crucial difference in turning from temptation or succumbing will be the motivation for turning away.

 

Multiple people within the classical education movement have highlighted the stories of Odysseus and Orpheus as examples of varying approaches to temptation. Both men had to sail with their crew of men by the sirens, melodious but deadly mythical beings who lured men to their death with their song.

 

Odysseus did not trust himself to resist the temptation, so he blocked his men’s ears with bees’ wax and had them tie him to the ship mast and promise they would not release him no matter how hard he begged to be free to mind the siren’s call. This approach is not dissimilar to those who continue to place themselves in harm or evil’s way but hope for the sheer will power to say no.

 

Orpheus took a different approach. Rather than stopping his men’s ears, he got out his lyre and played a more beautiful melody than what the sirens could offer with their musical enticements. Orpheus and his men escaped because their affections were attuned to what is genuinely good, true, and beautiful.

 

Orpheus with the Argonauts ~ Liebig trading card, c. 1931

 

This approach highlights the concept of Jesus as our shelter. Our children can be prompted to find shelter in him when they recognize that it is not a giving up of the good things in the world but instead a saving from the things in this world that will slowly destroy them from the inside out.

 

It is my prayer that my children will seek shelter in divine sanctuary. But it is also my prayer that my children and yours will not just have this prayer prayed over them but that they will someday pray for this shelter over themselves. We are all in need of refuge.

 

 

 

Velasquez, Jaci – Heavenly Place – Amazon.com Music

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