……..”My Grandmother.”……..That is the most common answer. “To what?”, you might ask? To the question: “Who represented Christ for you in your life? Who showed you something of God’s character when you were growing up? Who has had an impact in teaching you what you believe about God?” This is the follow up series of questions to my first two questions in this part of the interview: “Are you a spiritual person? What does that mean to you?” If they say yes and give some kind of definition of their spirituality, the next question is about where that came from.
These are the questions that I ask women who are applying to come into the faith-based life recovery program that is Titus 2 Partnership Ministry for Women. As I was thinking about women’s responses to this question this past week, having just interviewed another young woman, I was considering the meaning of this frequent answer. Is it that we have lost a generation of parents for many of these women whose lives are in chaos? Can they not point to parents who offered an example of character and righteousness that could have influenced these women to know God? Or is it that grandmothers are able to speak into the lives of their grandchildren with the gentleness, unconditional acceptance and love, and usually without the burden of discipline, that gives a more accurate glimpse into the heart of God than any other influence in their lives?
I was talking to another pastor who had a similar experience with a young man, whose eyes filled with tears at the mention of his grandmother.
I see so many of my peers here on facebook….proud grandmothers, showing off pictures of their grandchildren and sharing stories of their grands’ accomplishments…sweet stories, tender stories, funny stories. You, my friends, may well be giving birth to the next generation of God-fearing, Christ-believing young adults. Spiritual parenting. If we are negligent or are inadequate or unprepared to do it intentionally as parents, as I was when my children were small, God has a backup……grandmothers and grandfathers. Thank God for my grandmothers. Thank God for grandmothers of these women…because of them, these women at least have a starting point from which to begin to grow in their knowledge of God.
God’s plan for families includes the extended family….so that the spiritual and emotional and educational and other needs of children can be met through a variety of personalities, gifts, and skills…The extended family is compromised and struggling in our society. Many parents, especially single parents need the church to be the extended family, to serve in the role of “grandparents”. ….and as spiritual aunts and uncles and cousins, as well as grandparents. Family. So that all of us may come to know, love, and be in intimate family relationship with the One who is the Father of us all.