The Joy of Being a Grandparent

You've probably seen the bumper sticker that says, if I'd known grandchildren were going to be this great, I'd have had them first.

Mary LaMoya says she agrees. There's nothing like being a grandparent. People tell you that and you don't know it until you see that first grandbaby and you hold that grandchild. And then you see your legacy going on. There's no way to explain it. It just happens. It's just a God-given emotion when you hold that grandbaby.

But you'll never be the same. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. There is a lot of sentiment attached to being a grandparent, but there's a lot of work involved too. We'll talk today about our assignment to be more intentional as grandparents. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. Do you have special memories of grandparents who came to visit you or who live nearby? What do you remember? Oh, my grandmother, Faye, I called her Nana.

Which Ann is named after. She spoiled me. Every school year, at the beginning of the school year, she would take me shopping. And we were tight on money, but my grandmother would let me pick out a special school outfit for the year.

And she would buy all the accessories with it. And I just thought it was the best day of the year for me. Sometimes better than Christmas because all the attention was on me. And I have so many memories of her. I remember thinking, I want to be just like her. Probably more so than even my mom because I had a connection with her that was very unique. Maybe because I was named after her. But she still is one of just my most fond memories and one of my most favorite people in the whole world.

Dave, what about you? Any grandparent memories that stand out? Well, I didn't know my dad's parents.

I think I met him one time and I don't even remember. But my mom's parents probably were the rock. When I went through the divorce, when I was seven and my little brother dying when I was eight, I can remember going to Hallie and Leland's house. I don't remember what I called them. I don't know what I called them, but I just as I think about walking in their back door, I feel loved. I feel safe. I feel joy. And I didn't feel that very many places in my life at that time. So they were the source of well, actually, my grandfather was very strict. I won't even say some of the words I can remember him saying, but his wife, my grandmother, she was a lover of me and made me believe in myself. So it was a comforting space in the world.

What about you, Bob? I remember Marianne and I were talking about this the other day when my grandparents would drive down at Christmas time from Flint, Michigan, to St. Louis, where we lived. And I was looking forward to two things. One is they would always bring Verner's ginger ale in the trunk of the car. And I was a little disappointed because all they would bring was a case of Verner's. I wanted like multiple cases of Verner's. They just brought one case.

I thought, this is only 24 bottles. This won't last me long. You know, you really haven't changed much, Bob. The other thing I remember is that I knew at some point over the time that they were there, Grandma Cross would spend the night with me. She would sleep in my bed with me. And Marianne said, why did that matter to you? And I said, I don't know why I thought that was special to have Grandma sleep with you at night. I do know today that she wasn't looking forward to that as much as I was looking forward to it. And that for her, it was a sacrifice to spend the night with Bobby in bed. But for whatever reason, it was just comforting to have Grandma there with me all night long.

And you're a little boy. Yeah, right. I look forward to that. We're talking about the power and the importance of grandparents this week on Family Life Today. Mary LaMoya is joining us. Welcome back, Mary. Thank you.

It's great to be here. Mary was a longtime member of our team here at Family Life, one of the first people I met when I came here. And she served for 26 years, both as an administrative assistant and then as a writer, was a part of our content team. Many articles still online at familylife.com that Mary authored. She has since graduated to a more significant role. She is now a grandmother and actively involved as a grandmother with how many grandkids for you? We have eight.

Some who live nearby, some who live far away. And you see this as a significant part of your life assignment. You're not retired. You've taken on a new job. Well, I actually was a grandparent when I worked because I worked at Family Life. So that second job, it's really the primary one, you know, loving the Lord and passing your faith and your beliefs down to the next generation. You've got more time and capacity to be able to do it today than when you were working here.

Yes, I do have more capacity now. And Mary's written a book called One of a Kind Grandparent Connection that really takes us into your experience as a grandparent, but you're coaching the rest of us and saying this is a divine assignment for you. If you have grandkids, God's got a purpose for you.

Right. Just as far as this divine assignment for your children, same thing with your grandchildren. What's the one of a kind?

Oh, one of a kind? What did you mean by that? Well, for each grandchild in each person, there's a unique connection that you'll have that with that one grandchild, because if you have more than one grandchild, or if you had more than one child, they're different. And that's the same thing with your grandkids, how they're all different. So it's trying to find how to really connect and link with that grandchild. And building a legacy with your grandchild, I was thinking about that coming in here, but a legacy is something of value that you leave. And so really, what you're wanting to do is what do I want to leave with this grandchild? What is the inheritance I want to give them?

How can we do it together? You know, whether they live nearby or far away. Some people don't have a relationship with their grandkids. It's very sad, but they have no relationship. And they still can build that legacy, because they still can write that grandchild letters. They still can give them that history of family. And I know in this book, there's some stories of people like that, where people discovered grandparents who had been praying for them, and they never ever met the grandparent, and yet that person made a humongous impact on their life. Part of that legacy you're talking about is the legacy of who we are as a family. What's our family heritage and history?

And how do we see God's hand in the midst of that? But you are the connector for your grandkids. I remember Al Mohler in The Art of Parenting made the statement, he said, you are someone's ancestors, people you will never meet. You are their ancestors, and you're able to connect your grandkids with what's been true about the LaMoya family for generations and help them feel connected to something bigger than just their nuclear family. Right, and give them a sense of past family, even if you have pieces of furniture. You know, this was great-great-grandmother-whoevers.

Do you know to help them have that sense of family? My grandmother, Grandma Cross, she and Grandpa Cross got married in Colorado. They were farming out in Colorado when they met and married, and Grandma Cross used to tell me stories about Uncle Billy, who was a sheriff and was short, and so he had to be tough and how he would kick people and how he gouged out eyes because that was the only way that he could, you know, hold his own out in the wild. I had this picture of, again, the heritage of my family and the colorful characters that had been a part of it that I loved those stories and wanted to hear about them every time Grandma Cross came to town. Well, and Mary, you talk about the importance of personal stories, and as I read that, I resonated because I thought, oh, I wish I would have found out and asked more questions to my grandparents about their parents, but you talk about actually writing your stories. Right, writing them, and honestly, I think most of us are like that.

I'm like that. I think about my grandparents and the things they lived through, and it's like, I cannot believe that they lived through the Second World War, the Depression, all these things. It was like, uh-huh, yeah, you did that, and never thought much about it until they're gone and I'm older, so I think for our grandkids, we need to think about what we're living through now.

If you can get their interest, if they're older, have them ask you some questions and interview you. You can even have them write down some of the family history, but I don't think they're thinking that way now, just like we didn't. But it'll come because my daughter, my oldest daughter, grabbed the video camera before my mom passed away, and she spent a morning with my mom interviewing her and getting her on video to talk about what was it like in the Depression. When did you hear about the bombing of Pearl Harbor?

What was it like going through World War II? Well, we're going to have grandkids who are going to say, tell us about 9-11, and all of this stuff is going to be a part of the heritage that our kids are going to want to know what the family perspective on that was. I remember maybe two years ago, maybe it was a year ago, I was cleaning out some stuff in my office at home, and I find a letter from my dad to me, probably early when we were married, so 40-some years ago.

And again, this isn't a grandparent, but this is my dad, and I'd never seen it, his handwriting, and I can't tell you how emotional it was to read something he had intentionally written to me. I mean, I didn't even know this. He said, I remember I was 15, 16 years old, I looked up in the sky in Ohio and saw Charles Lindbergh fly over, and I decided right then and there I want to be a pilot. And he was an airline pilot. Wow. I didn't know that. Oh, that's amazing.

Maybe you hadn't, I didn't listen. And then there it was, he had taken the time to write it, and you're right. It's like, we need to write these things down. It may be 40 years later, but someday they're going to read it and it's going to have an impact for the legacy part. Right.

Right? Tell me this, you write about it a little bit in the book. How about the stories of your faith?

How do you transfer that down? Well, with the stories of your faith, you can write what happened. I know I've written down how I became a Christian.

My husband did that too. One Easter, we both went into detail about it. But we saved those letters because the kids were too little and we didn't think it was time for them to get that letter and just gave them a general letter about the meaning of Easter and Christ rising from the dead and just our salvation. I think it's just in our day to day life with what's going on. It's looking at a beautiful sunrise or sunset and how God has created it. It's sharing a challenge you're going through maybe with some of the older grandkids. It's asking them to pray. I've asked the older ones, all of them, texted them and said, y'all please be praying now. You know, ask them to pray, let them know how dependent you are on God, that he really is in your life.

It's not just go to church on Sunday, check off the box. But faith is vibrant and alive and that's what I want our grandkids to know. I want to read to you eight verses from Psalm 78 because this is what comes to mind to me when you're talking about this.

The psalmist, this is Asaph, so not David, Asaph wrote this psalm. He said, give ear, O my people, to my teaching. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known that our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children.

Now, that's interesting. We will not hide them from their children, but tell them to the coming generation. You see this whole transference, their fathers and children and their children.

And what are they telling them? The glorious deeds of the Lord and his might and the wonders that he has done. And yet you pause there and you look at that verse, passing on the glorious deeds of the Lord and his might and the wonders that he's done. I think part of that means you share the scriptures with your grandkids, you read them Bible stories, you tell them about what God did with Joseph and what he did with Abraham and what he did with Moses and Daniel and Jesus.

You tell them those things, but you also tell them the glorious deeds of the Lord and his might in your life and in the life of your family. It's not just what God used to do in the olden days. It's what God's still doing in our life today. Goes on to say he established a testimony in Jacob, appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded to our fathers to teach their children.

That the next generation might know the children yet unborn, arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God but keep his commandments. And then there's this, that they should not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God. And we've talked many times before about the great joy there is as parents when your kids are walking in the truth. And the parallel part of that is there's great grief as parents when your kids aren't walking in the truth. But a part of the way that we are faithful to see our children walking in the truth is to follow the instruction of Psalm 78 and pass on the truth about who God is from his word, but the truth about who God is in your own story and in your own life. And you have to wonder, do your grandkids, are they old enough to know your testimony? Have you ever told them your testimony?

Or have you shared with them what God's been doing in your life recently? This is a part of what we're called to do. Yeah, I mean, when you say that, when you read that, I mean, that passage, Psalm 78, has meant a lot to me as I had to decide when we got married and became a dad to change a legacy, because the legacy was alcohol and adultery and divorce.

And it's like, okay, can the Wilson name be changed? And it's interesting, we mentioned this here before, but as you think about the Ten Commandments where God says, you know, the sins of the Father, which he just sort of hinted at, we'll visit down to third and fourth generation. A lot of people don't know what he said next.

Right there in Exodus 20, he says, But showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. So we always think, you know, if I mess up, it's going to affect my family line. But he also says, no, no, no, if you're righteous and you obey, it doesn't just affect three or four generations, a thousand generations, which makes me think of a song.

Let me play you something. This song is very popular right now, I think written by Kerry Job. I'm not sure, but I know she sings it. But there's a bridge that the first time I heard it, I really teared up because of I think I was thinking about my own life and the opportunity to change our legacy. And she's really reflecting right from Exodus 20, it goes, And may his favor be upon you for a thousand generations and your family and your children and their children and their children. And may his favor be upon you for a thousand generations and your family and your children and their children and their children. And may his presence go before you and behind you and beside you, all around you. He is with you, he is with you, he is with you in the morning, in the evening, in your coming and you're going and you're weeping and rejoicing, he is for you, he is for you, he is for you, he is for you, he is for you, he is for you, he is for you. Amen.

Amen. I mean, it's such a beautiful reminder. That's why I teared up. It's like, may His favor be upon you and your family and your kids. And then when I heard the next line, the first time I ever heard it, and their kids and their children, it was like, oh my goodness, what an opportunity God has given us as grandparents to impact generation after generation. And Mary, your book is helping us do that.

It's just such a beautiful testament to the legacy God has called us all to leave. And it's hopeful, too, because I look at your legacy, Dave, and there were so many hard things in it. And yet I watched you as a dad with our kids, and it's amazing to see God transform something. And I think it's important, too, to even talk about, like for me with your family, Dave's mom was an amazing woman, but she also had an alcohol problem. And so talking to my kids, like what to say or what not to say. And so I think it's important for us as parents, how we relay our opinion of their grandparents on to them is very important, not to hurt, not to slander their name, not to bring out all the junk. And if you're hurt by your own parents, it can be very easy to do that, because Dave, you didn't have the best of legacies in some ways, but you still never talk negatively about your parents. I think my kids loved my mom and dad. And yet we also had some boundaries around situations.

Talk about that, Mary. How can we as parents, how can we help that connection with their parents or the kids' grandparents? Well, I think they can encourage their parents, as far as telling them how important it is for them to connect with their kids, how they want them to do that. They want them to share about their past, as far as their family and faith and things like that. But if there's a negative situation like that, I've always thought you need to honor your grandparents and honor their names. Now, when they reach a certain age, the kids are older, you might want to tell them some of the strengths and some of the weaknesses of a grandparent just to let them know the reality of life, the reality of situations, but that would be age appropriate.

But I think you'd still want to do it in a way that honors them. One thing that surprised me, I know I became a Christian when I was about 18, actually. But one thing that surprised me was all the negative things in the Bible. You know, God doesn't mince words with Noah and all these problems all these people have. And I was raised in a family where if you can't say something nice, you just don't say it. And God says many nice things, but he says many things that aren't so nice.

And that's just reality. And life itself, we're not in heaven yet, and it's messy. And God's a God of grace. And I think when we share, in a loving way, a weakness of maybe an ancestor, we can talk about how we all need grace, and we'll all fail.

And I know I wrote in the book, I jotted this down, just remember, it was just a quote by Billy Graham. But he said, don't be bound by the past and its failures, but don't forget its lessons. So I think that would just be what those parents should do is honor those grandparents, and not to be bound by it, but learn the lessons and move on.

And that's what you're doing, Dave, you're moving on. What does a grandparent do? If you're trying, especially even with your faith, you're trying to instill things in your grandkids and your own son and daughter, maybe you're telling to stay away or calm it down or Putting limitations on your time. And I think that's a common challenge.

And I've watched what others have done and, you know, just looked in my own life with different things. But I don't think you go beyond that parents boundary. You want that relationship with that grandchild. And so you honor that, but in any way possible where you can share your faith, you do that, but you honor that relationship. I have a good friend who is in that situation, and she could not send books that were Christian books, she couldn't do anything.

And so she just had to honor it. But you know, as a child gets older, and they know that grandparent, then there'll be more opportunities. And it could be that you write letters that you never sent. It could be that you write in your Bible that you never give. Someday, it's likely that child is going to discover something that was written to them and the story is going to be bigger and more clear. And so you can still be faithful, even if you can't deliver it in the moment, right?

Right. You can and you can have a whole package of things ready for them when you're dead and gone for someone to give to that child. That was really neat about you finding the letter from your dad that really was.

And I know we all feel this, but especially if you come from a legacy that wasn't godly, Christ was never really talked about. You know, I've always had this dream that someday, Bob mentioned it earlier, that my great-great-great-grandchildren will point out a picture of Dave and Anne Wilson and go, there's our legacy, that he and she started who we are today. We are the Wilsons and we believe in Jesus and we live for the kingdom. It started with them. You know, that's, I tear up, I mean, I feel like my kids get to do that, but I feel that's my call. Right.

And that's a huge call. It's changing the trajectory of a whole family. And it doesn't end when you become a grandparent, it actually becomes stronger. I think the conversations that we can have with our grandkids are priceless and precious. I know that I have had many nights laying in bed with my granddaughter and she asked so many questions. I raised three sons and they didn't ask all these questions as a five-year-old, but she was telling me the other night, she said, Nani, I've been telling my friends all about how you and Poppy tell everyone in the world about Jesus. And she's so open, she said, do you think that like, I should talk more about him?

And so these conversations, you know, as a parent, you're more rushed. But as a grandparent, I sat there in that bed that night, tears just falling down my cheeks thinking, I want this girl to know Jesus and she already is tasting that. And I told her, Olive, we are going to travel around the world and tell people about Jesus. And she's like, when are we going, you know?

So these are just precious, precious times that we need to take every moment and just take that because they're precious. Back when church moved online for everybody, our kids who lived in other parts of the country were occasionally tuning into our church service. And my daughter Katie texted me at one point and said, my grandson Cedric looked at her and said, why does G-Daddy always talk about God, right?

And I thought, you know, if that's his impression of me, that's what you want, right? Mary, this is such a great gift to have your book, your thoughts, your help on this. If you were sitting down with somebody who found out that they're going to be a grandparent, their first grandchild has not been born yet.

It's just around the corner. So they're about to enter into this phase and they said, what's your best one piece of advice? What's the one thing you'd tell me as I move into these years?

You know what it would be? I'd say love unconditionally and pray for that grandchild. There's nothing like being a grandparent. People tell you that and you don't know it until you see that first grandbaby and you hold that grandchild. And then you see your legacy going on.

There's no way to explain it. It's just happens, it's just a God given emotion when you hold that grandbaby, but you'll never be the same. Let me give just one more tip to parents. I think sometimes as grandparents, we can feel insecure in what they want our role to be. And so to even have that conversation with your own kids, I know that I've asked like, what do you guys desire? What does that look like for your kids? Because I can feel insecure thinking, do they want us, do they not want us? And I think it's just an open, great conversation to have.

What would you like it to look like? Yeah. And I can guarantee you this, the grandkids want you. Yeah, they do. They want you.

They do. So be there. Right. Right.

I agree. Mary, thanks for being with us. Thanks for this book. Thank you, Bob. Thank you all for having me today.

I've enjoyed it. And we hope our listeners will get a copy. In fact, we're making your book available this week to listeners who can help support the Ministry of Family Life.

We are listener supported, the fact that we've had this conversation today and hundreds of thousands of people have been with us for the conversation. All of that has happened because listeners like you have made it happen by supporting the Ministry of Family Life today. So if you're a regular, long-time listener, can we invite you to join the team that makes Family Life Today possible, not only for you, but for people in your community and people all around the world. When you donate today, we'll send you a copy of Mary Lemoya's book, One of a Kind Grandparent Connection. It's our thank you gift when you make a donation. And again, you can do that online at familylifetoday.com or donate by calling 1-800-358-6329.

That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Now here at Family Life, you guys know this. We're all about helping build stronger relationships in marriages, in families, and extended family relationships. We want to effectively develop godly marriages and families.

And we know that in 2020, it's been quite a year, and it's been a challenging year for a lot of families. A lot of marriages have faced strain and pressure that has been unusual for all of us. Well, we put together a resource online that we're making available to you for free. It's called Take Your Marriage From Good to Great. And when you access this online, you'll have available to you a couple of short online video courses that can help you understand your differences in marriage better, can help you resolve conflict more effectively. There are audio messages from Paul David Tripp and Vody Baucom, Julie Slattery, Gary Chapman that we're making available, downloadable resources. All of this to help you as a couple strengthen the foundation of your marriage relationship.

And again, it's all available for free. And as a little extra incentive to get you engaged with this, everybody who signs up to get this content, we're going to draw a name here in a few weeks. And one of you will be selected to join us at Family Life for an upcoming Family Life Today recording session, and then dinner that night with Dave and Ann Wilson. And we'll cover the cost of bringing you here and putting you up and some spending money while you're here. All you have to do to be eligible to win that trip is to go to familylifetoday.com and register.

There's no purchase necessary. The contest ends August 14th, restrictions apply, official rules can be found at familylifetoday.com. We hope you'll take advantage of this content, and then we look forward to seeing one couple here at Family Life for an upcoming recording session. Now, tomorrow we're going to talk more about love and what real love looks like. I think most of us tend to have a Hollywood version of love rather than a biblical version of love.

So, when we think about love in marriage, what should that look like? We'll have that conversation tomorrow. Hope you can join us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Hope for today, hope for tomorrow.