Wednesday 17 February 2010

Your grandchildren

Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren, - Deuteronomy 4v9

In case you can’t tell it yet I love grandparenting and I love my grandkids. Being Grampy is my favourite lifestage. I think that is mostly because with grandparenting I get to be involved with both my kids and my grandkids.

All grandparents know that there is a fine line to walk when dealing with our grandkids. We need to remember that these are our kid’s kids, but at the same time exercise our God given responsibility to parent and to grandparent. We certainly need prayer and God’s wisdom as we strive to walk that line.

God sets a pattern here for Israel that I think we would be wise to emulate. Basically it is this – ‘You take heed to keep the things you have seen and heard so that they don’t depart. Teach them to your children and your grandchildren.’

I look back at parenting our children when they were young. It is a good thing that parenting is a life-long job, because if mine we all based on those early years I would not have the best track record. Over and over again I acted unwisely. I made mistakes that still have in impact today. Gratefully we are still close to our children so we still have chances to try and rectify those mistakes.

And now God gives us grandchildren. Not only that, he gives us the responsibility to teach them. Is it too much to think that maybe God gives us a second chance? We take the lessons we learned from parenting their parents and try to do a better job with this generation, working and in hand with Mum and Dad.

What a great blessing God gives those of us who have the amazing opportunity to grandparent.

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