This gets me in the Christmas spirit every time…The Twelve Days of Christmas on YouTube by Straight No Chaser, check it out…
“Grandma, I like your old house”
My grandson says he likes my old house. It is old (like me) and has character, and it seems like home to us. There is something about old houses that draw me and I seem to like them better than the new ones sometimes! The Bible says “unless the Lord builds the house…” it will not stand. May we always have the Lord be the builder and sustainer of our homes and may our children and grandchildren love our old houses that the Lord has built for us, a legacy that we can leave to all who follow.
“Grandma, we love each other all the time, don’t we?”
Last weekend as I was babysitting my grandson, we were all snuggled down on the couch watching a movie, Toy Story, eating popcorn and trying to settle in for bedtime. My grandson says to me, “you know, Grandma Stout, I love you”. I replied, “you know David, I love you too! You are my favorite grandson!” David says to me “You know, Grandma, we love each other all the time, don’t we grandma?” Yes David, we do, we surely do!!
“Grandma, do you have muscles?”
My grandson often asks me, “Grandma, do you have muscles?”, I reply “not really”. He responds with “Where are they?” I say “They are hiding!”
So lately, he asks me to carry him (he’s over 40 pounds), and he tells me “Grandma, I’m having you carry me so your muscles won’t hide!”
I guess he has it all figured out about how to keep Grandma strong. It seems like the Lord likes our spiritual muscles strong too! By exercising faith, His love, His patience, all the fruits of the spirit. The Bible says to “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, that we might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil”. Eph. 6:10-11
“Grandma, are you brave?”
Recently my grandson asked me “Grandma are you brave?”. Then he said, I’m brave, I’m very brave” (remember he’s 3 years old)……… Of course, I answered him that I was brave – even though there are some hills and valleys in life that I am quite cowardly in wanting to even go through, although the Lord takes my hand and helps me walk through them, step by step.
Deuteronomy 31:6-8 tells us -
Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the LORD swore to their forefathers to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance.”
I believe the Lord wants us to take Him at His word, just like he told Joshua “Be strong and courageous”….I’m reminded that the Bible says “Out of the mouths of babes” – or is that grandchildren?? Yes, I’m brave!!
Cousins…Cousins…
Cousins – these are pictures of my daughter and her cousin, Pam, the picture on the left is a current picture, and the picture on the right they were both about 4 years old (a few years ago)……..Pam is my older brother’s daughter. Isn’t it funny that they are standing the same way as they did all those years ago in as they are in the current picture??
We thank the Lord for our precious family, and know that the Lord has given us children and grandchildren to be loved, cared for, and surrendered to Him…………..
With hearts aburst we brought them here…
To be loved beyond reason,
To be cared for at any cost, and
To be surrendered with open hand to Him who gave.
From hearts adream they issued…
To honor our young home with the mere fact that they are here
To embody the wordless awesomeness of the divine mystery of life’s increase, and
To endow us with a happy, human, internal orchestral rhapsody
that heretofore simply could not exist.
Through hearts inflamed we yearn for them…
To mature in a home of God’s imparting,
To seek out God because of human example, & To produce in others more than they found in us…..
“Grandma, why do you live in a old house?”
My grandson visited me this weekend and while he was staying with me, he asked “Grandma, why do you live in a old house?”, I answered “Cause I like it.” He also asks, “Grandma are you old? Do you like being old?” And you know, my old body is also a old house that the Lord lives in! A song was brought to mind as I was thinking about what he said, and the song goes like this (J.D. Sumner sings it):
“If this earthly tabernacle should be dissolved today
I’d trade it for a finer one, that would not pass away.
But till the day arrives when it’s time for moving out
Tis such sweet peace to know the Lord still lives in this old house.
The sweetest fellowship I’ve known has fortified these walls
And peace has reigned since He’s been walking up and down these halls.
With snow upon the rooftop now and these hinges near worn out
It’s such a joy to know the Lord still lives in this old house.
To Him it’s been a dwelling place where He kept my hand in His
To me a home away from home, is all it really is.
It sure ain’t fine and fancy and all I can boast about
Is after all these years the Lord still lives in this old house.
Now there were times He had the right, just to up and move away
And there were times and days I knew it took God’s amazing grace to stay.
But He never left this old building once, that’s why I can sing and shout
Cause after all these years the Lord still lives in this old house.
To Him it’s been a dwelling place where He kept my hand in His
To me a home away from home, is all it really is.
And it sure ain’t fine and fancy and all that I can boast about
Is after all the years the Lord still lives in this old house.
After all these years the Lord … Still lives in this old house.”
……Lyrics Bill R. Burns
A Boy Is……..
A Boy Is…
Author: Unknown
Trust with dirt on his face,
Beauty with a cut on his finger,
Wisdom with bubble gum in his hair,
And the hope of the future
With a frog in his pocket.
Well, my grandson hasn’t had a frog in his pocket, but his Dad did when he was about the same age as David is now (3-1/2), or I should say a toad. Only we didn’t believe him when he told us he had one in his pocket, and only when he took the frog out of his robe pocket, (a flattened frog/toad from sleeping on it all night) did we really believe him. The story goes like this, his older sister brought a frog into the house, and as the night progressed we asked them to take the frog/toad outside and leave it there. Well as children do sometimes, instead of letting the toad go outside, our son (his name is Dave too) put the toad in his robe pocket and slept with his robe on all night with the toad in it. We joke about the toad croaking in the night!
Now it’s our son’s turn to have a toad/frog trick from his son. Although I must say, our grandson has a long way to go to catch up to all the tricks his Dad did at his age.
We Need You, Lord
We need you, Lord.
Like lost wanderers in a burning, empty desert
thirst for cool, clean water,
we long for you to quench us.
In a world gone progressively mad,
with chaos all around us,
we seek refuge in the order and purpose of your law.
With evil sneaking, leaking everywhere,
spreading heavy darkness,
creating feelings of emptiness,
we hunger for your goodness and light.
Turn us around, Lord, we pray;
retrieve your sheep who have gone astray.
Draw us to the satisfaction
of your purity and righteousness.
Cleanse us, and make us more like you,
role models, examples, beacons,
for others who are searching for meaning for their lives.
Come, Lord Jesus.
We need you, Lord.
Like lost wanderers in a burning, empty desert
thirst for cool, clean water,
we long for you to quench us.
In a world gone progressively mad,
with chaos all around us,
we seek refuge in the order and purpose of your law.
With evil sneaking, leaking everywhere,
spreading heavy darkness,
creating feelings of emptiness,
we hunger for your goodness and light.
Turn us around, Lord, we pray;
retrieve your sheep who have gone astray.
Draw us to the satisfaction
of your purity and righteousness.
Cleanse us, and make us more like you,
role models, examples, beacons,
for others who are searching for meaning for their lives.
Come, Lord Jesus.
We need you, Lord.
Child of my child……
Child of my child Heart of my heart
Your smile bridges the years between us
I am young again …
discovering the world through your eyes
You have the time to listen And I have the time to spend.
Delighted to gaze at familiar loved features …
made new in you again Through you …
I’ll see the future Through me …
you’ll know the past
In the present we’ll love one another As long as these moments last
~~ Author Unknown ~~
Grandmas love to give gifts to their grandchildren, although the greatest and lasting gift we can give is faithful prayer.
A good way to pray for your grandchild is to use Scripture, you can just paraphrase Scripture by inserting the name(s) of your grandchild(ren) (and children!) and praying verses for them that cover every aspect of their life.
As we know, the Word was written by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration and is full of power and hope, and God said His Word would not return empty/void (see Isaiah 55:11). What a great way to have our prayers based on the Solid Foundation/Rock.
Today I pray for my grandchild, paraphrasing Scriptures and inserting his name in certain verses – for instance, I pray Isaiah 11:2, I can ask that my grandchild will have:
the Spirit of the Lord rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of [reverential] fear of the Lord
And for Salvation:
Thank you, heavenly Father, that you are not willing that my grandchild should be lost in sin. I trust that he will become a believer in You. I thank you in advance that he will become a believer in You. I pray that he will be taught by You and that great will be his peace (see Matthew 18:14; 2 Peter 3:9; Isaiah 54:13). And……May my grandchild show aptitude for learning, be well informed and quick to understand, have wisdom, great insight and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore (see Daniel 1:4; 1 Kings 4:29), and most of all may he have a heart like Jesus!
