Grandkids Say the Funniest Things

“A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children” (Proverbs 13:22a).

A teacher asked her young pupils how they spent their vacation. One child wrote the following:

“We always spend our vacation with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live here in a big, brick house, but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Florida and now they live in a place with a lot of other retarded people.

“They live in a tin box and have rocks painted green to look like grass. They ride around on big tricycles and wear nametags because they don't know who they are anymore.

“They go to a building called a wrecked center, but they must have got it fixed because it is all right now. They play games and do exercises there, but they don't do them very well.”

Let’s face it, sometimes grandparents can be as puzzling to their grandkids as grandkids are to their grandparents. And occasionally what the grandkids say about us can be downright humbling:

“Have you always been fat, Grandma?”

“How come you married Grandpa? He doesn’t have any hair. And when I ask him for a dollar, he says he doesn’t have any money.”

“Grandpa, how come you sleep so much?”

But grandkids can also say things that make us feel ten feet tall. When she was six-year-old, our granddaughter Kayla told my wife Gloria, “Grandma, next to Jesus, you are the nicest person I know.”

Timothy was an outstanding pastor in the first century, but his training for a commendable life and ministry didn’t begin in a seminary. It began at home. As was typical of first-century families, Grandma Lois, Mom Eunice, Timothy’s dad, and Timothy all lived together when Timothy was growing up; and Grandma Lois must have made a significant impact on the boy’s spiritual life. In his second letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul commented: “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also” (2 Timothy 1:5).

A grandparent may bequeath money and personal items to the grandkids, but don’t you agree that a godly testimony is a far better inheritance? Memories of the grandparents living in a tin-box house with rocks painted green to look like grass may stick with the grandkids for a while, but memories of Grandpa and Grandma’s faith will last a lifetime. Timothy would say Amen to that!

© Jim Dyet