Tag Archives: Grandparent

Chapter-a-Day

Ten Words

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“Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!”
Deuteronomy 5:29 (NIV)

The bedroom is absolutely quiet but for the softness of the deep breaths of fresh slumber. All is dark but for the warm glow of the nightlight near the door. I lay stretched out on the mattress and feel the warmth of my grandchild’s little body cuddled up next to mine.

This has become one of my favorite moments in life. I am happy to lay here long after the wee one has slipped into sweet dreams. Sometimes, I choose to stay until I follow them into the land of nod. In the meantime, my soul bathes in the holiness of the moment. I consider their tender young lives and the long journey ahead of them. I pray over their parents. I pray over them. Prayers of blessing, of protection, and guidance – bedtime transformed into Papa’s quiet vigil over this precious little life that I love so much.

In today’s chapter, Moses continues his final words to the next generation of his loved ones. He takes them back to the basics. In our English translation and Christian tradition we call them the Ten Commandments. In so many minds they have become nothing more than laws. Rules. Black-and-white demands of obedience. For many they are a symbol of a tyrannical God eager to punish.

As I read and shema (e.g. really listen) to the chapter, that’s not what I see and hear at all.

In Jewish tradition it’s called “the decalogue” or “ten words.” They’re not commands. In fact, rabbis speak of it being one ineffable sound of the divine from which Moses drew the ten words. What’s more, the context is not one of a tyrannical power monger but the intimate marriage vows of a lover.

God, who initiated the relationship.
God, who made a covenant with us, not the other way around.
God, who delivered us from slavery and chains.
God, with us – not our ancestors – with us here and now.
God, who amidst the chapter lays his heart bare:

“Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!”

The Hebrew word for “keep” is shamar. English flattens it into simple obedience. English has a way of forcing meaning into a box that can never contain it. This is a great example. Shamar is a whole-body verb—warm, protective, attentive, deeply relational. It is the Shepherd watching over his flock by night. It is a gardener guarding her precious plants from every threat. It is tending something fragile so it survives.

The root imagery of the word comes from watchmen on the walls of the city in the darkness of night, heart steady, every sense attentive. Not policing, but protecting because what they are guarding is precious.

Suddenly, my life-long perception of ten black-and-white “commands” is laid bare for the hollow and meager interpretive shell it has always been. The ears of my heart begin to shema the intimate heart’s desire that God groaned in one ineffable utterance, from which Moses teased ten words:

I am in love with you. I have proposed to you. I have delivered you.
I desire your love and devotion.
I desire to experience your honor and respect.
I desire regular rest with you, to stop and just be together.
I desire family to be a perpetual place of life, love, and security.
I desire that life, faithfulness, and truth be the core of who we are.
I desire contentment, because if we have each other – it’s always enough.

Which brings me back to the warm glow of the nightlight in the darkness. The soft repetition of a toddlers respiration as I feel the rise and fall of that little chest pressed up against me. Papa, the night watchman guarding over this precious little life. I lie there in the holiness of the moment feeling a love I can’t even describe. I think I’ll just lie here a while longer and shamar.

It’s taken nearly sixty years, Lord. I think I’m finally starting to get it.

Wendy and I celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary this New Year’s Eve. We’re leaving today for an early anniversary weekend getaway. As I read through my paraphrase of the ten words, it’s a good description of what I’m looking forward to savoring with m’luv.

Which means, I’m taking a few days sabbath from our chapter-a-day journey. See you next Thursday.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
A tranquil bedroom scene with a warm nightlight glowing near the door. A grandparent lies peacefully on a mattress with a grandchild cuddled close, showcasing a moment of love and protection.
Chapter-a-Day

Who Changed? The Parent or Child?

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Who Changed? The Parent or Child? (CaD Lev 20) – Wayfarer

“You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them.”
Leviticus 20:23 (NIV)

Our granddaughter, Sylvie, is an absolute delight. She is also a willful child in excess measure. Once Sylvie sets her will to what she wants or doesn’t want, you are in for the challenge of your life..

Sylvie is currently potty training. She’s taken her own sweet time getting here. When she came to stay at Papa and Yaya’s house last week we quickly discovered this little game she was playing. When her body told her it was time to do the numero dos, she would tell us she had to go potty. We put her on the pot and she would quickly ask for a wipe, use it and then say she was all done without accomplishing the deed. She loves putting the toilet paper in the adult potty and flushing it. Back she went to playing until a few minutes later she said she has to go potty again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

I went along with it the first two or three times, but I was not playing that game all day. What Sylvie doesn’t know is that I successfully raised her Aunt Madison, who was a Grand Master when it came to being a willful child. Sylvie experienced a side of Papa last weekend that she’d never really experienced before. It didn’t change my love for her one iota. She just learned that there’s a serious side of Papa that will meet her toddler willfulness head-on.

When Sylvie is a teenager, and when she becomes a young adult out on her own, my relationship with her will be very different. It’s a natural life progression. Right now, she is a willful toddler who needs loving but very firm and sometimes serious authority from her parents and grandparents to guide her in doing the right and healthy thing.

In this chapter-a-day journey through the book of Leviticus, I have repeatedly used the metaphor of humanity being in its’ toddler stages back in 1500 B.C. One of the hardest things for modern readers of the Great Story to grapple with is that the God of Leviticus seems so different and hardcore than the teachings of Jesus. I think it’s easy to lose sight of who really changed between the two. If our adult daughters, who now have children of their own, behaved in a way I found improper today I wouldn’t shout “NO!” at them with my authoritarian voice, command them to cease, and threaten them with a time-out, being grounded, or inflicting some kind of uncomfortable punishment (not that some parents don’t foolishly still use variations of these tactics with their adult children). That would be silly. They are adults and my relationship with them has changed, though I’m still the same father I was when Grand Master Madison was Sylvie’s age exhibiting her willful shenanigans.

In today’s chapter, God goes back to the sex thing that He addressed with His toddler children two chapters ago. He repeats (you have to repeat things a lot to toddlers) the authoritarian prohibitions of practicing child sacrifice (like the people groups around them were doing) and committing various sexual acts, most all of it referring to incest, which the people groups around them were doing without restraint. The threat of punishment was blunt and severe, just like one threatens a willful toddler.

In the quiet this morning, I thought back to a conversation Wendy and I had with friends over brunch yesterday. The conversation was about children in young adulthood. Children at that stage of human development make some really, really foolish mistakes (the same way we did when we were their age) but a parent must use a far more subtle and nuanced approach in attempting to guide, instruct, and support them towards wise and healthy decisions. The authoritarian toddler stage is pretty easy by comparison. Parenting a young adult requires the surrender, faith, and patience of the Prodigal’s father.

This begs the question, of course, in what ways is God still having to have surrender, faith, and patience with me in my “adult” stages of life? In what aspects of my life am I still being the Prodigal?

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Wayfarer's Journal

Our Week With Milo (Oh, and Taylor Too)

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Last week was a special one for Wendy and me. Our daughter, Taylor, and new grandson, Milo, came for a week while Clayton was in Africa working on a research project. It was awesome to get tons of cuddle time and to be able to help Taylor out as she continues the three-hour feed n’ sleep regimen. Thankfully the Winter Olympics were on pretty much 24/7 so we got to enjoy that. Even Milo got in on the act thanks to his mommy’s amazing graphic art skills. Milo even came with us on Sunday morning and listened to Papa give the message.

I’ll admit that Papa Tom got a wee bit “misty” from time to time as I rocked, walked, cuddled, and sang a few rusty lullabies from 25 years ago.

I’ve had a lot of grandparents give me a steady stream of cliches about being a grandparent:

  • “It’s the greatest thing ever!”
  • “It’s so much fun!”
  • “Being a grandparent is more fun than being a parent!”
  • “You get to spoil them and then send them home!”

Last week proved that it’s definitely all true.

Thank mommy for the amazing graphic work!
Thank mommy for the amazing graphic work!
Thank mommy for the amazing graphic work!
Processed with VSCO with c2 preset

Wayfarer's Journal

The Honorable Badge of “Papa”

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(Note to regular readers: It’s a crazy busy week and I’m taking a little hiatus from my chapter-a-day posts! You’re welcome to check out the archive and choose a favorite book, chapter, or simply grab something at random!)

A few years ago we were at the lake with our good friends, the VL family. My little buddy, Aaron, was only a couple of years old and he just naturally started calling me “Papa” in the course of natural conversation (this was their family nomenclature for “grandpa”). Aaron wasn’t doing this consciously. I was an old man with a lot of gray hair and the important old men he knew in his life were his grandfathers. His folks made a valiant attempt to correct him, but as he wasn’t doing it consciously I could tell that little Aaron didn’t understand what he was doing wrong. When he looked at me, he saw “Papa Tom.” I quietly cherished the moment, and pinned it to my soul as a badge of honor.

This life journey courses with a certain natural flow and I long ago gave up trying to hurry it up or slow it down. It is what it is. Embrace the moment and keep pressing on. I confess that Aaron calling me “Papa” made me really look forward to the day when, God willing, I would get to pin that badge on for real. But, I’ve been content to wait for it to happen if/when it’s meant to happen.

Yesterday, it happened. Our daughter Taylor gave birth to Milo James and I am so excited to enter this new stretch of life’s journey as Grandpa, Papa, Gramps, Bampy, Opa, Geepa, PawPaw, or whatever crazy version of the word that little Milo might come up with. Looking forward to all the experiences ahead watching him embark on his own journey, and can’t wait to offer a little support, wisdom and lots of love along the way.

Life is good.

Chapter-a-Day

“Labor” of Love

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We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 1:3 (NIV)

Just this week our daughter Taylor publicly announced that she is pregnant with Wendy’s and my first grandchild. Her former husband, Clayton, is the father. We’ve known for several weeks, and have been eagerly engaged with her in processing this unlooked for curve in her life journey. When she showed up to tell us it came as a bit of a shock…well, a giant shock, to be honest. We had no idea that she and Clayton had seen each other while he was home from Africa. Taylor’s well-worded Facebook post nailed it: “Well, life is full of the hard, messy and unexpected. And yet experiencing all of that can also be full of goodness, beauty and purpose.”

I thought of this momentous new change in life this morning as I read the opening of Paul’s letter to Jesus’ followers in the bustling Greek seaport of Thessalonica. Paul begins his letter by expressing a trinity of goodness he and his companions observed in the Thessalonian believers:

  • work produced by faith
  • labor prompted by love
  • endurance inspired by hope

If the three motivators sound familiar, it’s because they anchor Paul’s famous discourse on love in his first letter to the believers in Corinth when he wrote, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

What really struck me however, was the fact that two synonyms were used in the triad. “Work” and “labor” can be defined in English as the same thing. So, I did a little digging into the original Greek words Paul used in this sentence. The Greek word translated as “work” (ergou) refers to more of a routine job. Think of it as daily chore on your task list that simply has to be done. The Greek word translated as “labor” (kopou) is more specifically defined as “laborious toil.”

Thus I find myself contemplating both work and labor this morning. I will “work” today analyzing a client’s phone calls, filling out an expense report, and attending a corporate Board meeting. I am doing the routine “work” of writing this blog post. I will “work” to carry out the tasks Wendy has for me on my trip to Des Moines. All of these are part of my journey of faith, doing what I need to do on the path I believe God has called me to tread on a day-by-day basis.

Both our adult daughters are out of the house and have been on their own for some time. The “work” of providing for them, making sure they’re up, making meals, doing laundry, driving them to activities, and et cetera are long over. These routine daily tasks were simple acts of faith, believing that we were raising capable young people who would be mature adults who would successfully follow the respective paths God would lead each of them. Mission accomplished.

But the labor never ends.

Last evening I happened to have conversations with both Taylor and Madison by phone. The work of parenting continues. It’s no longer the grunt work of daily provision. It’s different. It’s the loving labor of watching helplessly from a distance as they make their own decisions, choices, and occasional blunders. It’s the emotions that come from caring so deeply about lives you cannot (and should not) control. It’s the struggle of the protector in me wishing I could spare them the pains of “the hard, messy, and unexpected,” but knowing that it is that very hard, unexpected mess that teaches us the most important life lessons that lead to maturity. And so, I mostly labor from a distance as counselor, confidant, advocate, sage, comforter, cheerleader, and friend.

This morning in the quiet I’m thinking of the “work” ahead of me today and this weekend. I’m also contemplating the continued “labor” of love in the weeks and months ahead as father, and now as grandfather. I am so excited. I’ve learned along this life journey that the “hard, messy, and unexpected” usually produces life’s deepest, richest, most meaningful blessings.