Where’s Your “Safe Space”?

“For Thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy.”  Psalm 61:3

You may have heard of “snowflakes”.  I am not talking about the literal frozen white crystals that fall from the sky in winter, but the college students who are sheltered on campus from anything that might offend them or cause them distress.  Some schools have designated “safe rooms” where students can go if they become anxious over reality or anything they hear of which they disagree.  I suppose the term “snowflake” is used because an actual snowflake is delicate and can only survive if the conditions are right.

A college “snowflake” requires a space where he or she can only hear or see what pleases him or her.  But what is going to happen ten or fifteen years after graduation when these sheltered men and women have their own families and careers?  What will they do, if, God forbid, a child gets cancer, or the spouse leaves, or they lose a good job which is funding a big mortgage, or any number of other adversities?  And believe me, adversities will come.  No one gets through life unscathed.  Will they go back to their alma mater and beat on the door of the “safe room” demanding to be let in.  Surely by that time the educators will have discovered that their social experiment with manipulating human emotions did not work and will have already returned to teaching students the fundamentals of pursuing a good education for their future and the necessity for critical thinking.  One can only hope.

There is nothing wrong with desiring a safe, peaceful atmosphere.  I like to be comfortable and as far away from conflict as anyone else.  However, we do not live in a world where everything is a “bed of roses”.  Quite the contrary.  We live in a sin-cursed world where bad stuff happens 24 hours a day all around the globe.  The world cannot provide a “safe space” anywhere.  Children must be taught to deal with disappointments and difficulties.  They need to learn to “take a licking and keep on ticking”, like many of us baby boomers who graduated from the “school of hard knocks”, rather than wandering through life singing “Poor, poor pitiful me.”

While the world cannot provide a “safe space”, there is One “when my heart is overwhelmed (who will) lead me to the Rock that is higher than I” (Psalm 61:2).  God is our fortress, our shelter, our strong tower that protects us and carries us through life’s difficult circumstances.  He is our “Safe Space”, and we don’t have to go to a college campus to find Him.  He is with us all the time directing our steps and guarding our hearts in every circumstance of life.  Bad stuff still happens, but we are not defeated as long as we are trusting in the Lord.