As grandparents’ day approaches Shelley Logan recommends this new devotional to help Christian grandparents navigate their role
Grandparents Day is this coming Sunday. It is a secular, modern ‘day’, however, it can serve as a great reminder of the importance of grandparents in family life, regardless of how old our grandchildren are or how far away they live. It can also be a helpful prompt to reflect on, continue, or even begin our spiritual input into our families’ lives.
To help us, Martyn and Angela Thompson have written a 31-day devotional book especially for grandparents, called Hear our Hearts. This book is designed to help us pray intentionally for our grandchildren, as well as for our own walk and witness as we live our lives before our families.
Martyn and Angela show the importance of grandparents in God’s plan for passing on the faith to the next generation
Using scripture, Martyn and Angela show the importance of grandparents in God’s plan for passing on the faith to the next generation. They want us to know God’s power, through our prayers, is not limited by age, distance or family circumstances and that therefore ‘daily prayer for our grandchildren is one of the most loving and lasting gifts we can offer.’ They remind us of the importance of our prayers as God is faithful and hears and answers them in accordance with his will.
As we reach the end of the book, the Thompsons encourage us to keep a note of how God answers our prayers, which is an excellent discipline, as we so easily forget. These notes will be beneficial to us as seeing answers to prayers is an encouragement to keep going, plus, one day, they may serve as an inspirational gift to our grandchildren and an insight to them of how God has walked with them through their journey thus far.
Hear our Hearts’is a beautiful, unique hardback devotional book
Hear our Hearts is a beautiful, unique hardback devotional book. It is an undated devotional, so it can be started at any point in the year and used repeatedly. This will make a lovely gift for new grandparents, grandparents who are new to the Christian faith or someone seeking to be more intentional about praying for their grandchildren.
Although the devotion contains only 31 days, there is a good variety of topics covered, which may help broaden our prayer life, from praying for the salvation and discipleship of our grandchildren to good health and friendships. There are other topics that we may not have readily thought to pray for, such as praying for our grandchildren to live with contentment.
The format for each chapter is the same. Each day begins with a short reflection to introduce the theme. Following the reflection, each devotion continues with two relevant Bible verses that serve to direct our thinking toward what God has to say through scripture about the topic. Though generally helpful, at times, however, these verses can feel somewhat tokenistic, as they have been taken out of context. To supplement the verses, this section could have been enhanced by a suggested Bible passage to read, giving a broader insight into the theme and moving forward may result in deepening our prayers.
This is a book I will definitely be using again and again as I broaden my prayers for my grandchildren
The third section is ’A Prayer for Myself as Grandparent.’ I loved this section. It can often be easy for us to pray for others, whilst forgetting ourselves, and our walk and witness before our family. Before we pray for those we love, this section centres our thinking on our relationship with God, our example, attitudes and behaviours. There are many beautiful lines in these prayers. One such example is day five, where the theme is Trusting God. The prayer for grandparents includes the paragraph, “Help me, Lord, to trust you in all circumstances, even when I cannot see the way forward. May my trust in you shine brightly, showing my grandchildren that you are worthy of our faith and confidence.” After praying for ourselves, we then move to pray for our grandchildren. These payers are rich and varied, covering many aspects of our grandchildren’s lives and relationships, asking God to draw them into a deeper relationship with himself.
Each day concludes with a short paragraph entitled ’Pause and Reflect.’ This draws together the scriptures and prayers for that day, encouraging us to take a moment to consider what we have just been reflecting on, praying for and will take into the day.
At the end of the 31 days, there is a section entitled ‘Keep Going’ which is an encouragement in our role as grandparents and how we can continue to pray for and be an example to our grandchildren.
Read more:
Christian grandparents: An underused resource in the faith lives of youth and children?
How can I grandparent as my children want?
The book concludes with three appendices, the first of which are scriptures which can be used as blessings over the lives of our grandchildren. These blessings comes in the form of scripture to be spoken ‘directly to the person, declaring over them God’s goodness, presence and purpose.’ The first and third appendices highlight opportunities in the mundane and exceptional occurrences of their lives, where we can speak these blessings and God’s love, grace and mercy to our grandchildren.
We are encouraged to continue to trust God’s promises in the second appendix. Scriptures and short prayer ideas are listed to enable us to continue praying after the 31 days. The authors state, “Praying the promises of God means we choose to trust Him even when we can’t see the full picture. His word gives us confidence to pray boldly, love deeply and live faithfully.” What better way to move forward in our own walk with God as we pray for those we love?
As we reflect today on the role of being grandparents, the authors remind us, “when we pray, God moves. He hears every petition, understands every burden, and delights in drawing our families closer to him. The wonderful aspect of this is that whatever our circumstances, we can pray for [our grandchildren]and entrust them to God.” This is a book I will definitely be using again and again as I broaden my prayers for my grandchildren.
Shelley has 3 grandchildren, Effie (13), Amos (11) and Tilly (9).
Hear our Hearts is released in October
