When my sons were small, I kept a running list of their funny sayings in my journal or in the memory books I kept for each of them. Many of the most amusing or surprising were questions:
“What’s inside my tongue?”
“Did Moses watch tv?”
“Does Penny (our dog) pray?”
They kept me on my toes, but I never minded, because their questions revealed an active mind and a genuine interaction with the world around them.
Scripture is fully in favor of kids asking questions! In fact, Joshua, Israel’s leader during their era of conquest, told the people to place a pile of stones in the Jordan River as they crossed into the Promised Land.
And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the covenant had stood…” (Joshua 4:9)
He knew that the children of future generations would ask about the stone piles, and he wanted their parents to use that opportunity to tell the story of God miraculously parting the waters so they could walk through in safety (Joshua 4:6-7).
So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.”
Joshua has this grandmother’s attention, and I’m asking myself an important question:
Am I leaving piles of stones for my grandchildren?
Is there anything about my life, my habits, or my words that would inspire God-oriented questions in my grandchildren’s minds? That’s a sobering thought for this grandmother of eight inquisitive souls, because questions serve as door-openers to the kinds of conversations I want to have.
Is there anything about my life, my habits, or my words that would inspire God-oriented questions in my children’s or grandchildren’s minds?
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When stone-pile questions arise, grandparents have the privilege of explaining important matters of faith. Stone-pile questions are an invitation to influence and shape the thinking of our grandchildren. If something about my life triggers a meaningful question, that question may open the door to a valuable conversation about God and His Word.
Let the Stone-Pile Questions Begin!
How can we keep the door wide open in our unique relationships with our kids and grandkids? I have a few thoughts:
Be sure that the Word of God is part of your everyday experience. You can’t give what you don’t have. Your life won’t point to something you’re not actively chasing. You don’t have to go to seminary or wear out a box of colored pencils in your Bible study habits. You simply have to let God’s thoughts shape your thoughts—and you will find his thoughts between the covers of your Bible.
Talk to God about everything. If you are in regular conversation with someone, that someone is likely to show up in your conversations with others. If God is that Someone, you can report to your grandchildren the content of those conversations you’re having with him—even when (maybe especially when) we don’t yet understand what he’s saying.
Listen when your grandkids are talking. Be a safe person for them to talk to. Often, their own words about what’s troubling them or giving them joy can be an onramp to a stone-pile story from your own life about how God met a need or offered comfort.
Introduce your grandkids to your music, your reading, and other aspects of your intellectual life. In age-appropriate ways, give them access to the influences that have shaped your worldview. Make recommendations of what’s good and admit to your poor choices. Allow yourself to be a three-dimensional person to your grandkids and not just a flat, cardboard cutout.
Pray for wisdom and opportunities. I have a feeling that I’ve missed opportunities to speak truth into my kids’ and grandkids’ lives simply by being too busy or too distracted by the idea that I should be multitasking. And I know for sure that sometimes my own words have fallen flat and have sounded trite and ineffective even to my own ears. Grandmothers are grace-dependent creatures all our lives. We need godly wisdom to fill us with stone-pile words.
And let Joshua’s words be a challenge to you to keep praying for wisdom and opportunities:
When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them…”
What are you doing to pile stones of remembrance in the path of your grandkids?
Holding You in the Light,
Let Joshua’s words be a challenge to you: “When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them…” What are you doing to pile stones of remembrance in the path of your grandkids?
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Living Our Days 
As Hubs and I sit by the fire waiting for sunrise, expecting today might be challenging – snow mixed with sleet flying sideways outside. We are anticipating loss of power because of ice. All that is to say, reading your words about sharing stone moments with the youngers I had to sum it up in my head. Of course.
Being a young mom, you spend most of your time in a frenzy of basic life skill lessons combined with as much prepping the next stage of growing up. You have to be agile to find ways to insert the higher lessons of faith and Biblical history using tools like books written for kids.
But when you are a grandparent most of the mechanics of raising good people is left to the parents so you can do interesting creative things that plant good seeds in less bullet point ways. I can claim to have been very blessed to have been muchly involved with all seven of my grands – even now as they are grown and we can have serious discussions on deep subjects, like what is our grand purpose – serving our Savior.
But now I am losing ground and feel as though I am officially on borrowed time – I am not likely to have that kind of relationship with my great grands – two as of now. I did what I am still able to do though – I trust their parents will carry on and I pass the grandmother torch to my daughter. She is so on it!
And maybe they will get a chance to hear my lyrics one day.
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