My grandmother had a deep spiritual bond to life and to me. I learned this by watching. I watched her attend church. I watched her pray. I felt her love for me, and I learned. During a Lenten study group I once led, we started off by talking about our faith backgrounds. For each person who had not been raised in the church, the draw to church had been a faithful grandparent who shared his or her faith with the grandchild. As a child, I felt that my grandmother was the closest thing I knew to God: familiar, loving, fun and omnipresent.
Today is Tuesday in Holy Week. The readings are Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 71:1-14; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; John 12:20-36. We remember Jonathan Edwards, teacher, missionary to American Indians, died 1758. This message is adapted from “For the Love of Grandparents” written by Clare LaPlante in the May 2000 issue of Lutheran Woman Today (now Gather) magazine.