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When Your Kids Don't Know Their Grandparents Well · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Bart Leger: Dale Russell had a problem a lot of grandparents
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  would recognize. His granddaughter was two years old
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  and lived five hours away. He'd do the thing everybody tells you
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  to do, hop on a video call, and she would lose interest almost
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  immediately. A toddler doesn't want to look at a face on a
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  screen and make conversation. She'd wander off after a minute.
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  He'd be left holding a phone, watching the top of her head
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  while she played with something on the floor. Five hours was too
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  far for a quick visit, and Dale could see the future. At this
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  rate, he'd be a nice man who showed up a couple of times a
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  year, and not much more. We'll come back to what Dale figured
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  out. But first,
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  welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. I
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  know that feeling from the grandparent's side of it.
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  There's a distance between me and some of my grandkids that a
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  phone call just doesn't handle. They're old enough to carry on a
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  conversation. Catherine and I will ask questions like, how was
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  your schoolwork today? What did you do today? They lived across
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  the street from us for years, so they know us very well. And they
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  also come to visit several times a year. But it's still not the
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  same as being able to see them whenever we like. A lot of
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  families are spread out now. grandparents live in one state,
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  parents in another. The grandkids grow up on a handful
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  of visits a year. And jobs move people. Housing prices move
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  people. Nobody sat down and planned it this way. Here we are
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  anyway. Some things get lost in the process. The stories your
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  parents could tell your children about where the family came from
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  and what God did for them back when things were tight. The
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  habits and small kindnesses grandkids pick up just from
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  being around older people who love the Lord. Those don't
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  transfer over a two-day Christmas visit with everybody
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  rushing. There's a verse that talks about this. Psalm 145, 4.
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  Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts and
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  let them proclaim your power. Look at that verb, tell. One
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  generation tells the next. It's spoken out loud from somebody
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  who was there to somebody who wasn't. David is describing a
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  parent or a grandparent saying, Let me tell you what God did for
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  us the year your daddy got sick. preserves our stories and keeps
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  the knowledge of God alive. It often happens informally in the
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  car or standing in the sink drying dishes. That's why the
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  distance costs what it costs. So if distance is what you have,
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  use what you have. Video calls do more than they seem to do in
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  the moment. A visit twice a year that everybody plans around and
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  protects on the calendar will accomplish more than four visits
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  nobody prepared for. And here's the piece most people
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  underestimate. What you say matters more than how long you
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  talk. A five-minute call where you tell your grandchild one
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  thing God did in your life will outlast a 30-minute call about
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  the weather and the ball game. The goal is to hand something
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  down. So Dale stopped trying to make a toddler hold still for a
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  chat. could move onto a screen. The answer was reading. He set
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  things up so he could read her a picture book over live video,
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  turning the pages while she watched and pointed. And the
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  books he reached for were mostly Bible stories, Noah and the Ark,
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  David and the Giant. He'd read and then the two of them would
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  talk about what happened. Dale breaks it down for us. Christian
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  grandparents have one thing above all to hand down, and
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  that's their faith. Five hours couldn't stop that. It's just
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  how he did it. The miles stayed the same. What changed was the
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  activity. Dale quit asking a two-year-old to hold up her end
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  of a conversation and gave her something to do with him instead.
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  And look at what he reached for. Bible stories. He went straight
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  to the thing Psalm 145 asks a grandparent or a parent to hand
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  down, and a screen turned out to be good enough for the job.
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  Here's today's challenge. Pick one person in your family who
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  lives far away, a grandchild or a grandparent if you're on the
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  other end of this, and set up one call this week and give it
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  an activity. Read a book out loud or show them what you're
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  cooking, and somewhere in the middle of it. Tell them the one
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  thing God has done for you that they've never heard. Just one
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  story will do each time. That's what it looks like for one
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  generation to tell the next. Father, thank you for our
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  families, including the ones stretched out over a lot of
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  miles. You know every household listening right now and exactly
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  how far apart they live. For the grandparents who feel like
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  strangers to their own grandchildren, give them a way
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  in and show them what to do. For the parents in the middle, give
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  them the energy to keep making these calls happen when nobody
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  else feels like it. And let the stories of what you have done
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  get told out loud in these families so the next generation
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  hears about them from somebody who is there. In Jesus' name,
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  amen. If Daily Devotions for Busy Lives has been an
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  encouragement to you, would you take a minute and leave a rating
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  and review? It helps more people find these devotions, and it
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  only takes a moment. I'd be so grateful. Thanks for joining me
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  on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. Remember, the miles are
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  what they are, and the telling can still happen. Make the call
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  and tell the story. Come back next time for more encouragement
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  to help you live grounded in God's truth. Until then, God
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  bless and have a great day.