Michele Howe - Theres a Reason They Call It Grandparenting

Introduction

W hen I was a young teen, I remember sitting on the back porch of our home reading a magazine in the brilliant summer sunshine and thinking to myself that I could do this too (a rather daring thought for a teenager). This meaning I could write an article and get it published in a real honest-to-goodness print magazine. Then I set my magazine aside and promptly forgot that little notion for many long years. It wasnt until after I married in my early twenties and started a family of my own that I began to revisit my long-forgotten dream to write articles or, well, anything for publication.

As a stay-at-home mom, I rediscovered my love for the written wordboth reading and writing it. Within eighteen months of the birth of my first child, I sold my very first article, and I havent stopped writing for the past thirty-two years. My body of work includes book reviewing, author interviews, single-parenting guides, parenting articles, nonfiction pieces on health and well-being, childrens ice-breaker games, adult devotionals, and Bible curricula. I even wrote a few fictional stories. Those several thousand articles prepared me to write books. At last count, Im working on book number eighteen and still loving every minute of the process.

In the same way that long years of article writing prepared the way to book writing, I believe my parenting years paved the way to grandparenting. Real-life experiences always build, grow, and continue to shape and form the people we are today. First, I became a mother of four children. Today, I am the grandmother of four grandchildren (and counting!). What I learned along the way (as a result of making mistakes, enduring failures, and overcoming frustrations) I now utilize to make myself a better grandmother than I was a mother.

One of the primary themes of this text readers will continually revisit is the life-altering distinction between being a mere grandparent and choosing to be a grand parent. I hope youll choose the latterevery time. Becoming a grand parent is living with eternity in mindall the time. It means going the extra mile (or more, many more) for the sake of your grandchildren. It will entail sacrifice of every sort. Time. Money. Energy. Sleep. But every sort of giving up and giving away the best of what we have and are is all good... in the light of eternity.

Grand parenting is all about bending the knee before our Lord Jesus Christ and asking him for our marching orders. Then we get up from our knees and get busy loving our grandchildren in ways they will remember, value, and appreciate. Grand parenting takes every bit of our parenting experience and sifts out what didnt work the first time around with our children to glean only the finest insights, wisdom, perceptiveness, and giftedness we have to offer our grandchildren. Catch the vision of growing into the kind of grand parent who can impact the entire next generation for Christ. Its for the good of your grandchildren, and it will do you good.

Part One
What Is Grand parenting?

Chapter 1

The Difference between a Grandparent and a Gran d parent

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.... For this reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:3, 58

Wise, mature, godly people live aware of the spiritual; they see it in every situation of life. They see the spiritual implications in everything they do, in every situation they are in. This is what we must aim to produce in our (children and grandchildren). To do this we must be spiritually minded ourselves.