Your Name Is Daughterಮಾದರಿ

Day 5: Give Me the Grandmas

Our faith is a community affair. We need the older generations who have gone before us to pass along their sincere faith. We need the grandmothers and mothers, aunties and uncles, cousins and siblings. We need all of us. One grandmothers’ faith has the ability to pioneer the faith of the next generation.

Eunice and Lois, his mother and grandmother, have greatly shaped Timothy’s faith. These women played a crucial role in his spiritual upbringing. Paul honors these women and how they sowed into Timothy.

Sadly, sometimes the older generation of women can feel displaced, unwanted, unneeded, and sidelined. Our world prizes youth in such a way that can damage the church. We are being sold a bill of lies—we need the older generation so much. We need them to teach us, shape us, mentor us, and comfort us.

Give me the grandmas who have walked through the valley of darkness and have a rich story of faith in God to tell because of it. Give me the grandmas who have walked through seasons of despair, who know pain and loss and grief, and who have kept their faith. Give me the grandmas who can look back at decades of God working in their lives and tell me He is faithful and we can trust God. I want their wisdom, their experiences, their teachings.

If you are sixty and older, we need you, friends! We need you to pour into this next generation and to testify to what God has done in your lives for the younger folks. If you are younger than sixty, seek out an older woman. Ask her why she still has her faith in Jesus. Ask her what God has done for her. Ask to hear how God has held through a hard time. We need every kind of daughter in the kingdom of God.

Prayer for Today: God, help us to be a generationally diverse church who honors our grandmothers’ faith. May we listen to the wisdom of those who have gone before us. Amen.