The government kept track of us on paper. Case files, intake forms, placement reports — a trail of our childhoods that could fill a filing cabinet but never told the truth about who we were.
Every time we moved, a new name showed up at the top of a new page. We learned early that identity could be typed, stamped, and misfiled. Our lives were reduced to stacks of paper. That’s what systems do. They organize what they can’t understand or can’t fix. But no paper ever held the sound of our laughter, the fear in our stomachs, or the prayers whispered before sleep. The record kept our dates, not our full stories.
There are children today living inside those same folders, their names shifting as adults shuffle the paperwork. The forms describe where they are, not who they are. They’ll never know how heavy it feels to be tracked but unseen.
God has His own recordkeeping system. It’s not paper — it’s a promise. Scripture says our names are engraved on His hands. That means we can’t be misfiled or misplaced. We are more than the words typed above the case number.
If you work with kids in the System, remember this: the file tells the facts, but the child carries the truth. Look up. Call them by name. Let them hear they belong to something greater than paper.
