Teresa Kindred - The Faith-Filled Grandmother: Promises, Prayers & Practical Advice for Today

Copyright 2019 by Teresa Kindred

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Good Books, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

Good Books books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Good Books, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or .

Good Books in an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., a Delaware corporation.

Visit our website at www.goodbooks.com.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Qualcom

Cover photo credit iStockphoto

Print ISBN: 978-1-68099-429-2

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-68099-430-8

Printed in China

Table of Contents

Introduction

W hat sort of problems do todays grandmothers face? What are her hopes and fears? How do grandmothers handle family issues that threaten peace within their families?

About ten years ago, I started a blog named NanaHood. I chose that name because I believe NanaHood is the second half of the motherhood journey. Over the years, I added on social media accounts, and today NanaHoods Facebook page has a following of close to 50,000 grandmothers from all over the world. To find the answers to the questions above, I turned to these grandmothers. My questions reached over 18,000 women, and hundreds of them responded. They opened up their hearts and shared their joys, sorrows, worries, and wisdom regarding the issues plaguing our current and future generations.

We live in a world of challenges that were unheard of just a few decades or years agothe reign of the Internet, nontraditional family structures, and increasingly fractured relationships, for example. And yet, a grandmothers wisdom will never go out of fashion. Grandmothers, with their lifetime of experience, have more knowledge than anyone since Solomon. Simply put, Nana has a hotline to God! How can she fulfill her role as a godly grandma in the face of modern-day issues?

Based on the sharing from the grandmothers on NanaHoods Facebook page, The Faith-Filled Grandmother will discuss the most common and relevant problems at lengthfrom grandmothers who raise grandchildren themselves to long-distance grandmothers; from grandmothers who spoil their grandkids to those who wish to keep them spiritually focused in a material world. Each chapter is followed by Gods promise, an appropriate prayer, and practical advice from grandmothers who share personal stories about how they overcame.

This is a prayerful guidebook and spiritual resource for the modern-day Nana. Whether youre a veteran grandma who shares these same challenges or youre a first-time Nana, the promises in these chapters will offer encouragement to every reader who hopes to sustain godly traditions in the family and leave a lasting spiritual legacy.

CHAPTER 1

Grandparent Building Blocks

I ll be honest. When my son said, You are going to be a grandmother, I thought he was talking to someone standing behind me. After all, I wasnt old enough, was I? I ran to the mirror and peered closely at my reflection. In my mind grandmothers were supposed to look like Grandma Layne, my maternal grandmother. She was large, soft, and cuddly in all the right places, with gray hair and black-rimmed glasses. The woman looking back at me from the mirror was built like Popeyes wife, Olive Oil, and she was about as cuddly as a bean pole.

Not only did I not look like Grandma Layne, I didnt act like her either. She was a homemaker who made biscuits and gravy from scratch every day. She had the patience of Mother Teresa. She never complained about anything and always had time to play games or read books with each one of her grandchildren. My biscuits are Pillsbury, and I cant sit still long enough to play games.

What kind of grandma serves her grandchildren biscuits from a bag and refuses to play Candy Land? The answer to that question is obviously, I am , and maybe you are as well.

Grandmothers of the Past

My grandmother was born in 1913, and she and my grandfather married during the Great Depression. Their income (what little there was) came from farming. The cash crop in southern Kentucky where they lived was tobacco, and every family that could raise it did so because it paid the taxes and gave them a little something to put toward seed and plants in the spring.

Tobacco didnt provide enough money for groceries or any extras, so they raised all their food and had milk cows and a few hogs. In addition to gardening, canning, washing, sewing, and cooking on a wood stove, my grandmother also cared for her invalid mother-in-law and her three children. My mother was the middle child, and she and her brothers worked from the time they were old enough to toddle until they left home. By the time the grandchildren arrived, my grandfather was in poor health. My grandparents got by on Social Security. Im sure my parents helped them out financially, though it was never mentioned. After my grandfather died, it wasnt until my grandmother was in her eighties and I started to help care for her that I found out her total monthly income was around $250.

Why does my grandmothers background matter? The same reason your family history matters. We learn how to be mothers and grandmothers from those who raise us. In some cases, maybe we learn from a neighbor, a friend, or a member of our church family; but what we experience as a child goes with us for the rest of our lives.

Todays Grandmothers and Choices

If I had to mention just one thing that made the biggest difference between the life I lead and the life my grandmother led, it would be without a doubt the amount of choices I have that werent available to her. Perhaps your grandmother, too, was a member of my Grandma Laynes generation. Think about the opportunities we have today that our grandmothers didnt.

My grandmother would have never dreamed of going to college. I, on the other hand, never considered that I wouldnt get a degree. Most women my age have had careers. Many of us are still working, some because of necessity and some just because we enjoy what we do. Grandmothers today may choose to grow their own food and can or freeze it, but they also have the option of shopping at supermarkets where the selection of food items would seem mind-boggling to past generations.

Another big difference between grandmothers then and now is how we spend our leisure time. My grandmother darned socks or knitted in her spare time. Eventually, she and my grandfather were able to afford a telephone and a television with an antenna that got three stations, sometimes just two if the wind wasnt blowing from the right direction. They didnt go to sporting events or movies because they didnt have the money. They got up when the sun rose and worked until the sun set in the evening.