Latest / 5–Minute Parenting: Tips to Help You Raise Competent, Godly Kids. / Praying with Your Grandchildren

Transcript

Praying with Your Grandchildren · 5–Minute Parenting: Tips to Help You Raise Competent, Godly Kids.

• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Today I have a special guest on five-minute parenting.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: My guest is Melissa Henderson.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: She's an award-winning author who writes inspirational messages to encourage readers.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: She's also the author of two picture books, Lickety the Lizard and Grumpy the Gator.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Her passions are helping the community and church, where she is an elder, deacon, and Stephen minister.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Melissa, and thank you for joining us.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Sandra.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so happy to be here and share some thoughts about praying with grandchildren.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that includes children too, but this is a passion of mine, is praying with grandchildren.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I would love to just share that there is an importance of prayer, as we know as believers, and children and grandchildren are watching us in every word that we speak, every action that we do.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Even if they don't tell us, they're watching us.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we share prayer time with them, we're sharing our love for God.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And we're teaching them the importance of prayer and sharing our love for God with them.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: That can come at any time, day or night.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, our grandson, who is six, Rowan, uh, who I write about him and his sister Eden, who is two, almost three, I write about them in my blogs a lot because they bring such joy and laughter to our lives.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: But Rowan is at the age where he can spend the night.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Eden hasn't started spending the night yet, but Rowan spends the night.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: He loves to share time with Mimi and Bob, as we're called.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the important things that we do at night is we have our bedtime prayers.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he will talk, talk, talk, talk, talk all uh up until it's time to fall asleep.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then we we fold our hands and we we share in prayer time.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there is a special bonding time with Rowan.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he speaks about uh um, there's not a formal prayer.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about thank God for the day, our food, our friends, our teachers, the bugs we see outside, the lizards that didn't come into the house, thank goodness.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the sky, the birds, any anything on a six-year-old mind will come into the prayers.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he he thanks God for his family, his friends, you know, all kinds of things, which I'm very thankful for that, that I just kind of let him go in his speaking to God.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, it's just precious to watch this little child uh share time with God.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's the way we end our day.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: But beginning our day, we love to open the front door and say, thank you, God, for this glorious day.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's an offering of prayer to God, thanking him for his day, even though we don't know what the day will bring.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we walk to the front door.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: This is just something I've started doing a long time ago.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: We walk to the front door, open that door.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, God, for this glorious day.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Then we walk to the back door and do the same thing.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, God, for this glorious day.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: That begins our day in a positive way.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh prayers can be given all day long.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Not only at mealtime, which we do, we put our hands together and thank God for his provisions.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: We thank God for the food, the hands that prepared the food.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: We we also thank God all during the day, taking walks.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: We can thank God for those ants crossing the sidewalk in front of us.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thankful that we didn't step on the fire ants this time and get boo-boos, as he calls them, because those ant fire ants will hurt.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: We thank God for those friends down the street, those strangers we don't know.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: We wonder what they're doing, but we thank God for them.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: We pray that they're safe and that they're okay.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: We just can spend many, many moments thanking God for different things throughout the day.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why praying with grandchildren is so important.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: We don't just set aside time for our own prayers.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Show them how to love God, how to share time with God, how to share the love of God through prayer.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: And they don't have to be big, extensive, long with fancy word prayers, simple things.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, God.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, God, for babysister Eden.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, God, for mom and dad.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, God, for Mimi and Bop.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, God, for the band aids on my boo-boos.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for my teachers.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for my friends at school.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: The list just goes on and on.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just so thankful that my husband and I moved from Virginia to South Carolina six years ago to be close to son, daughter-in-law, and first grandchild.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: But now, as I say, there's two grandchildren.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: But we just want to instill the importance of prayer, speaking with God.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Make that so comfortable with grandchildren that they can talk to God any time of the day or night.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that's my message for today.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's praying with grandchildren is important and blesses them and blesses us too.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I have for today.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Sandra.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you, Melissa.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: That was just beautiful.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it is so important that kids see uh parents and grandparents modeling prayer, just normal, everyday talking and just thanking God.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, then they grow up that way.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: They know they know a way to pray just naturally.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's just so awesome.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you, Sandra.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Have a blessed day.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: You too.