"Happy Birthday Faith and Logan!"

I love my children and grandchildren. Today is the seventh birthday of my grandchildren, Faith and Logan. They are such incredible gifts from God. The more I am able to be close to them the more I have learned of the grace of God. I recently read a snippet that expresses my thoughts about the experiences we have with our grandchildren by Angie Papadakis. She wrote, “A baby has a way of making a man out of his father and a boy out of his grandfather.” How true!

As I have been convalescing after back surgery, I have not been as sturdy as they have been accustomed to. I am restricted to what I can pick up. That has meant I am unable to catch them in my arms and scoop them up for a kiss and a twirl. Just the other day when we went over to their house to have our family thanksgiving together and watch a little football, Faith came up to me and gently snuggled up for a kiss. She said, “I know you will get better Grandpa. Then you can twirl me in the air.” I was incredibly humbled to think that she would even notice! Both Faith and Logan were gentle around me. Once Logan came and climbed into my lap to sit for a bit. He was very careful to sit still (an accomplishment for a very busy boy) and then slid off and went about his way. As I thought about our relationship, the following passage came to my mind:

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? (Psalm 8:1-4 NIV).

That highlighted verse jumped to my mind. After all, how will our children and grandchildren learn to praise the Lord except through us? It is an awesome privilege to be able to show our children the way to secure ourselves from any “strongholds” and “silence the foe and avenger.” There’s ample evidence based on interviews with children and grandparents that children need their grandparents and vice-versa. The study shows that the bond between grandparents and grandchildren is second in emotional power and influence only to the relationship between parents and children. Grandparents affect the lives of their grandchildren, for good or ill, simply because they exist. Unfortunately, a lot of grandparents ignore that fact, to the emotional deprivation of the young. Of the children studied, only five percent reported close, regular contact with at least one grandparent. The vast majority see their grandparents only infrequently, not because they live too far away, but because the grandparents have chosen to remain emotionally distant. These children appear to be hurt, angry, and very perceptive about their grandparents. One of them said, “I’m just a charm on grandma’s bracelet.”

Positive roles that grandparents play are caretaker, storyteller, family historian, mentor, wizard, and confidant, negotiator between child and parent, and model for the child’s own old age. When a child has a strong emotional tie to a grandparent, he enjoys a kind of immunity—he doesn’t have to perform for grandparents the way he must for his parents, peers and teacher. The love of grandparents comes with no behavioral strings attached. The emotional conflicts that often occur naturally between children and parents do not exist between grandparents and grandchildren. The challenge I have embraced is to be such a positive influence. I pray you will join me in that commitment. And, of course, I must end with Happy Birthday Faith and Logan!