Graceful kids

Grandson to Grandfather who has just given grandson $5: How about you give me $20?

Grandfather to grandson: I'll give you $20 when you're 20.

Grandson to grandfather: How about $30?

Grandfather to Grandson: I'll give you $30 when you're 30.

Grandson to grandfather: You'll be dead when I'm 30.

The Bible has little to say about friends (google it if you don't believe me) but it has plenty to say about children.

Children were an especial favorite of Jesus, if you remember. "But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these."

Man, Gabe and Gavin and Parker and Livvy and Emma and Karli and Mia own the kingdom of God. Wonder if they know that? The way they act,I think they know.

Interestingly, Paul puts one of the qualifications for being in ministry this way: He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect.

And of course there is the Psalm: 4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one's youth. 5 Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. hey will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate.

And of grandchildren the bible says: Children's children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children.

I revel in all that to say this: My grandchildren are wonderfully nuts. They say the strangest things, think the wierdest things and I love each moment of the far too few moments we have together.

Gavin to pawpaw yesterday: I got spit on your shirt.

They engage the world in the way it should be engaged. Each moment is one to be spent in full engagement, full out, today is the only day I have to worry about kind of living.

Gavin to pawpaw when pawpaw said he was keeping his pictures of Gavin and Gabe because it helped him to remember who they are: I'm Gavin Rubio (with puzzled look on his face as if to say, "dummy, I know who I am, don't you?).

All this nonsense about grandchildren making you feel younger is just that, nonsense. But what they do do it make you feel as if all this, whatever this is, has been worth it. They are each special, each capable in his or her own ways ... though Emma Rose still looks at me as if I was an interloper who must be run from the castle.

They each have their own pains, their own terrors, their own worries. No one can argue differently. But Jesus saw in the children a way that we should act. He said most famously, "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

Now, I always found it interesting that a man without children could speak that way, but that's okay. Children and our children's children are the reason we make it through our lives sane.

Of course, all those moments when they threatened our sanity are still bouncing around in memory, too.

But in the end, like most of what has passed for our lives, they are special. The scriptures conclude: Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him.

A reward. That's what Jason, Shanna and Carrie have been to me. That's what Mia, Gabe, Karli, Parker, Gavin, Livvy and Emma are to me. A reward I never deserved.

Sounds like grace to me, huh?