When our children were small, we would tell them stories of what it was like when we grew up. I could see their eyes get bigger, and I could hear their giggles as I shared my childhood. I had a crazy childhood!
As the youngest child of eight, I had a lot of training in how to find ways to have fun. We were dirt poor, had few toys, and watched little television. My father ruled with an iron fist, and the television came on at night only if he said it did. The lights went out when he said they went out, and often that was early. So, we had to have creative imaginations as kids.
My home growing up was not very nice. There were two bedrooms in a four-room house, with ten people needing a place to bed down at night. The kids often packed like sardines into one bedroom. We had to be very quiet because making noise would have made for a mad father.
Quietly, we waited for our father to go to sleep. Once our dad was snoring hard enough to open and shut the front door, we put our imaginations into action. We had learned to remove two or three boards from the old wooden floor beneath a bed. As noiseless as possible, we would slip through the hole and escape from captivity to freedom. Underneath that old house that sat a few feet off the ground was sand, dirty old sand. We would crawl through that sand and run out into the field to play. When we sneaked back to our beds, we were filthy, but we were happy.
Another story that made children’s eyes get larger was explaining how we played hide and seek when neither parent was home. When it came time to hide, the older kids would take the younger ones to a great hiding place. (Being the youngest, I now realize it was amazing that I lived through it.) I was put in the oven, in the refrigerator when it was empty enough, and a host of other “great” places.
My children heard so many stories of a childhood that consisted of an over-bearing father, but also creative kids that had fun despite it all.
On September twenty-fifth, I will turn the ripe old age of seventy-two. I still like to share some of those stories with my grandchildren, but those are not the ones which are most important to me. Of great importance to me is that my descendants know the story of how my life was rewritten by the Lord Jesus Christ.
When the opportunity arises, I tell them a story of a woman who saw me in my Granny’s front yard and started taking me to church with her. She treated me like she really cared about me. She introduced me to Jesus Christ which set me on a journey that recreated my future.
I have told them of being afraid as I shook like a leaf in a storm when I stood up in my speech class at college. Standing before that class, with tears starting to well up, I mentally declared that I would never stand before people again. I kept that promise for many years. Yet, I can testily to my grandchildren about a God who can empower us and strengthen us through times of fear.
Because God is forever at work in my life, I will never run out of stories to share with my grandchildren!
As I turn seventy-two, what advice would I give? Tell your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and others about the God-moments in your life. Share the marker moments when God brought you through something bigger than you could handle alone. This is your God-story. Share it chapter by chapter and be intentional about it. Write down the next chapter you want to share and be ready to tell them about a divine moment when God showed up.
Don’t preach, TELL. Tell them of a God who shows up. Let some of it be old stories, but share current stories of a God who is still showing up in your life. After sharing the story, pray, pray, pray for God to use those seeds in the lives of your children and grandchildren.
When my life is over, I don’t want to take all my God-stories to the grave. Our children and grandchildren are living in a time when faith in God is often ridiculed. I want them to hear of a God who is real and is present. Tell your stories.
“Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation.” – Joel 1:3