Topic > Marriage & Family > Grandparenting >
Imitators
Kids love to imitate. That’s how they learn. And just as we pass down our wisdom, skills, or hobbies to our children, God asks us to follow His example. There’s no better way to learn how to love life and live life than from the One who created us.
For Future Generations
When a team of Christians visited Stavropol, Russia, in 1994 to hand out Bibles, a local citizen said he recalled seeing Bibles in an old warehouse. They had been confiscated in the 1930s when Stalin was sending believers to the gulags. Amazingly, the Bibles were still there.
Among those who showed up to load them into trucks was a young agnostic student just wanting to earn a day’s wage.
Why They Are Grand
Grandparents are great bridge-builders. My grandparents, farmers on both sides of the family, were children of the 19th century and relayed an important heritage of both history and faith through the years.
Today, my children benefit from their grandparents’ faith because they can see that my wife and I have personally accepted the faith modeled for us. And our children have seen and heard their grandparents’ testimonies of faith for themselves.
A FIRM Foundation
Before she was 2 years old, my granddaughter Katie did something that would make any grandpa proud: She began to recognize cars by make and year. This all started when she and her daddy began spending time together playing with his old collection of toy cars. Daddy would say, “Katie, get the 1957 Chevy,” and she would pick it out of the hundreds of tiny cars. And once, while he was reading a Curious George book to her, she climbed down from his lap and ran to get a miniature Rolls Royce—an exact replica of the car pictured in the book.
Following Our Example
Alyssa, who is 6 and just learning to read, often saw her parents and grandparents reading their Bibles in the morning. Early one day, she woke up before everyone else. Grandma found her sitting on the couch, with her Bible and a devotional booklet on her lap. She wanted to follow the example of spending time with God at the beginning of the day.
