To All Generations
Stolen Hearts
I recently became a grandmother. My youngest daughter and her husband are the proud new parents of a baby girl, Faye Catherine Collier. She has already stolen our hearts and made us grin like Cheshire cats. We are humbly grateful for her.
As I walked and held this grandbaby in my arms yesterday, bouncing her so that her parents could get some needed sleep, what kept coming to my mind was Psalm 100:5, a verse I memorized as a child. “For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” (ESV)
God’s Generational Promise
Scripture is full of promises to us. When I memorized Psalm 100:5 as a grade schooler, I believed the words to be true. They were God’s promise to me that He is good, that His steadfast love would last eternally, and that He would be faithful to my generation as He had been to the generations before me, and those who would come.
Now, as a new grandma, I know the words of Psalm 100:5 to be true because I have witnessed their veracity. Oh, how good our God is. He is perfect in all of His ways. I may sometimes be confused by His ways, but I am convinced of His goodness. When I or others become faithless, He remains faithful. His love never changes, even when I don’t understand it or recognize it because of the pain of this world. The cross proves His love, even in the darkest of days.
As a child, I remember those few believers I knew who were confident in God. I wanted to stand near them, hoping whatever they had could spill over onto me. I intuitively knew that being strong in the Lord would carry me through life. I asked God to let me know Him like they knew Him.
A Growing Confidence in God
I couldn’t have guessed that God would answer that prayer and teach me to know Him intimately through suffering, but that is sometimes His way. When you learn that you cannot control anything and all you have is Jesus, you turn to Him and release everything to Him. It is in the release and surrender that we know Him. We let go of our expectations and demands and open our hearts to receive Him as He is, instead of how we want Him to be. Long term suffering gives us daily opportunities to surrender. And each time we let go, we know Him a little deeper and trust Him a little more. It grows our confidence and frees our hearts.
To the Next Generation
It is this confidence in God, in who He is and how He loves us, that I want to pass on to my granddaughter. I want to show her God’s love by loving her unconditionally. I want to be a safe place for her to ask life’s hard questions. I want to read to her, teach her Bible stories, laugh with her, and play endless games of Candyland with her, just like I did with her mother. I also want to teach her how to make her great-great-grandmother’s sugar cookies. If you tasted them, you would know why.
Our God gives us bountiful gifts because He is good to us and because He loves us. We did nothing to earn His gifts. He lavishes on us because He is a good Father and that’s what good fathers do. I feel and experience His abundant love every day, but today I especially feel it in the joy and gift of becoming a grandma. Thank you, thank you, thank you God.
Psalm 145:4 “One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.”
Photo by Chuck Sedgwick