Day 7. "From Childhood"
Mark 9:21
21 Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”
“From childhood,” he answered.
Mark 9:21 NIV
“I wonder if you have hurt so deep for so long that you don’t even recognize your pain as pain anymore. It’s just a part of you. As much a part of your day as your morning coffee or breakfast tea. Your pain might rise and fall as inconspicuously as you breathe. Unchecked, unexamined pain might have become central to your identity.”
-Peace Amadi “Why do I feel like this?”
Jesus steps into a chaotic scene where a boy is suffering under an unclean spirit. The spirit would make him lose his speech, seize him, and throw him to the ground. This boy has been tormented with this since he was a child. When I read the father’s answer to Jesus’ question of “how long?”, I’m reminded of how much of our inner world begins forming in those early years. Childhood is where we first learn who we are, what people are like, and how the world works.
The passage calls him a boy—likely a young teenager—yet even before adolescence, there had been something working against his life. Likewise, many of us can point to things that have been with us since childhood: beliefs, fears, wounds, or ways of relating that keep us from becoming who we believe God has called us to be. These long-held patterns of being work against life, where God works toward life, which is Himself.
In therapy, adults often return to these early places not to dwell on the past, but to understand how past experiences shape the patterns of today. Questions naturally arise:
Why do I keep getting into these kinds of relationships?
Why does this area of life trigger such fear?
Why do I speak to myself—or others—this way?
Who first told me that about myself?
Why do I feel like I am not enough?
These questions help us trace present-day struggles back to their beginnings. “From childhood” implies both duration and depth—wounds or patterns that have been with us for a long time and therefore take time to heal.
Maybe the barriers trace back to your father, mother, sibling, or teacher. Maybe to the things that happened—or the things that should have happened but didn’t. Whatever the source, healing requires God’s presence. Therapy can be a great partner in that process, but prayer invites God into the deepest layers of the story where only He can work.
Childhood is meant to be a place of safety, nurture, and formation. For many of us, it wasn’t. Instead, it held trauma, neglect, violation, or abandonment —which now feel embedded into our formation. When these burdens are carried alone, they can lead us to approach adult challenges with the coping strategies of a child. A child cannot handle adult problems.
So pray. Keep praying. Invite God into the places that formed you—from childhood—to bring the healing only He can give.
Reflective Question: Am I willing to address my struggles from childhood? How will I move forward in this process?
Prayer: Lord, I am so glad that you have the full picture of my life’s story. You’ve felt my pain, and you’ve cried when I have cried. May you give me the courage to address these challenges I face with myself and others that have stemmed from childhood? Remind me that you have the ultimate power to heal. Give me the right therapist to sift through these things with. Help my unbelief if I am not yet convinced that you can do this for me.
In the Healer’s name, Amen.