"Nothing makes a child as smart as having grandparents."
-Franklin P. Jones
"Children need models rather than critics."
-Joseph Joubert
"Elephants and grandchildren never forget."
-Andy Rooney
-Proverbs 17:6 NLT
A few Saturdays ago I wanted to paint the chicken house. (The bunnies live there too.) To do so I enlisted the help of our grandchildren . . . and one stray; he's one of our adopted grandkids and we count him as part of the crew. After giving out brushes and two one-gallon cans of barn red paint they began painting and did a very good job. I do realize now that I need taller grandkids since the chicken house was only painted about two-thirds of the way up the walls. (I finished the upper portion later.) It was a fun project and we did accomplish a lot in a rather short period of time. We also had great fun doing something together. We do have one bunny with a barn red nose but other than that things seemed rather normal for a painting project. Our next project will be the treehouse and then, maybe, the garage.
I'm sure you've seen the bumper sticker, "If I had known grandkids were so much fun I would have had them first!" My favorite grandkid quote is, "Grandkids are God's blessing for not killing your kids!"
We have a sign in our kitchen:
NANA'S KITCHEN
WHERE MEMORIES ARE MADE
AND GRANDKIDS ARE SPOILED.
Ever since we've had that sign I've wanted to take a marker and add the word, "rotten" at the end! Maybe I'll do that today!
Nana is a much better grandparent than I. She has more patience in her little finger than I would have in my whole body if I could live three lifetimes. She thinks they won't really get clean unless they take their baths at our house. Our pantry is their Snack Shack. (The snacks are usually the healthy kind but the grandkids don't know that!) Often one or two can be found sleeping on a Nana-made bed at the foot of our bed. That's Nana! I'm thinking, "Margaret, you do know they have their own bedrooms about a hundred yards from here!"
Children are important to Jesus. In Mark 10:13-16, we read, "One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch them and bless them, but the disciples told them not to bother him. But when Jesus saw what was happening, he was very displeased with his disciples. He said to them, 'Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I assure you, anyone who doesn't have their kind of faith will never get into the Kingdom of God.' Then he took the children into his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them."
As I see it, Jesus did two much needed things that day: He touched the children and he blessed the children. Actually, Jesus did three much-needed things that day because he taught some parents and his own disciples that children were very important to him.
Kids need to be touched! They need hugs, pats on the back, high-fives, tickles, and lots of love. But kids can be touched in other ways as well. We can always be touching their hearts and minds and spirits. We can encourage, motivate, challenge, strengthen, and teach. Our homes should be havens where children can hide out in security, love, and acceptance. Reggie Joiner, one of the greatest children's workers I know, said, "What happens at home is more important than what happens at church." I recently baptized two young girls, both were led to Jesus by their parents at home! Isn't that great? Touched!
Children need to be blessed! I'm not sure what all that entails. I looked up bless in the dictionary and the picture is somewhat clearer. Bless means, "to confer or invoke divine favor upon; ask God to look favorably on; express or feel gratitude to; thank." Blessed is "endowed with divine favor and protection." In the light of those definitions I can see how Jesus feels.
Jesus overrulled his disciples, "'Let the children come to me. Don't stop them!' . . . Then he took the children into his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them." Dr. Charles Stanley said, "The Greek word implies He blessed them fervently. We wonder if He prayed to His Father out loud for each child. Perhaps He used an Old Testament benediction. We can be sure the parents never, ever forgot what they saw and heard.
"Perhaps the disciples didn't, either."
That leads us to our third much-needed thing: Children are very important and valuable to Jesus. They are priceless treasures that he invokes divine favor upon, looks favorably on, is thankful for, and wants protected. And, he wants to use us, parents and grandparents, in the process.
And . . . we better do it now. They grow up way to fast. The great theologian, Erma Bombeck, wrote these words about the statement, "Why don't you grow up?"
"It's not time yet. It can't be. I''m not finished. I had all the teaching and the discipline and the socks to pick up and the buttons to sew on, and those lousy meal worms to feed the lizard every day. . . . There was no time for loving. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Did they ever know I smiled? Did they ever understand my tears? Did I talk too much? Did I say too little? Did I ever look at them and really see them? Did I now them at all? Or was it all a lifetime of 'Why don't you grow ups?'
"I walk through the house and mechanically shut a refrigerator door that is already shut. I stoop to retrieve a towel that has not fallen to the floor but hangs neatly on the towel rack. From habit, I smooth out a spread that is already free of wrinkles. I answer a phone that has not rung and with a subtlety that fools no one, I hide the cake in the over.
"And I shout, 'Why don't you grow up?'
"And the silence where once abounded frustration, fear, disappointment, resentment, compassion, joy, and love echoes, 'I did.'"
They do.
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