There are three verses that I have been thinking about a lot this week, as my grand-twins, grand-big-brother and I keep plugging away at our Fruit of the Spirit summer project. (Well, technically it’s eight verses – or two verses and a passage ) They are all wrapped into one of the songs we’ve been learning for our project. I Walk By Faith by Chris Folson is a fun praise and worship song for grandma and grandkids alike and it includes quotes from each of the three verses.  We’ve had a great time learning the song and singing it together as we continue to “hide God’s Word in our hearts.” In focusing on this song over the last few days, I realized how encouraging they are for all of us in the Sandwich Generation.

We don’t always understand why things happen the way they do. Why Grandma got Alzheimer’s Disease, why granddaughter has Spina Bifida, why Uncle George is struggling after his third stroke. Why all these things happened so close together. They do, though, to so many. Particularly in our Baby Boomer Generation. The question isn’t “why.” The question is, “what.” What can we do about it?  We can prayerfully seek to keep our eyes fixed on God, putting one foot in front of the other, and taking care of whatever needs doing each day.

We walk by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7

What happens if one or more of our beloveds develops dementia of some kind, arguing with us unreasonably, yelling untruths about us from a mind clouded in a fog.  God holds us close and tells us,

“No weapon that is formed against you will prosper; And every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, And their vindication is from Me,” declares the LORD. Isaiah 54:17

There are days when we feel so alone, so lonely, and as if the world is coming against us. That’s when we can grab hold of the book of Romans, particularly the 8th chapter, and hunker down and dwell in it. I often like to write out verses and carry them with me to “snack” on them. Romans 8:31-35 is wonderful for that:

If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Romans 8:31-35

If you’re in the midst of a difficult circumstance, feel free to join me in printing these out and carrying them with you. If you’re in a quieter, more peaceful moment, cherish it! And prepare for any future rapids that may carry you into rushing water by hiding these blessed Words of God in your heart. In that case, my grandsons and I invite you to join us in that project as well with this fun video.

Grab a grandkid or five and learn it with them. Have fun singing it at the top of your lungs, making up fun hand and feet motions, knowing you are tucking vital truths into your heart and the hearts of your grandkids. What better way to spend time! 

News of interest to you in the Sandwich Generation: Caregivers, Grandparents, Baby Boomer generation, and more. That’s what Thursday’s SandwichINK tends to focus on and this Thursday is no exception.

But today’s news is special. Rather than pulling a news story from the headlines, SandwichINK is making its own headlines. As you may recall, we had our first ever contest, featuring a WalkerWonder banner for aging parents and others who use walkers or rolling walkers. I want to thank everyone for participating! AND I want to thank Kathleen LeRoy and WalkerWonder for this high quality and special walker banner for dads! The contest is over and the winner has won!

And now the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Drum roll please!

The winner is:

Mary from EldercareABC

CONGRATULATIONS MARY!

I will be collecting contact information from Mary and mailing off her banner by this weekend. Once again, thank you to all who participated! We appreciate you ALL! 

My grandkids and I are still working on the Fruit of the Spirit that is called LOVE. We’ve continued memorizing the Fruit of the Spirit verse and we’ve done a lot of talking about love. God’s love for us and our love for each other.

As I was praying about God’s love this morning, He reminded me of the passage in 1 Corinthians that talks about love:

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous;

love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly;

it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails…But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Isn’t that a wonderful prescription for caregiving? It doesn’t matter whether you are taking care of an aging parent, an adorable but precocious grandkid, or for that matter, dealing with a sweet but but occasionally recalcitrant spouse. Perhaps it’s a cute but capricious teen? How about a boss or coworker who sometimes makes you want to scream. Let’s face it, no one is perfect. And as caregivers, we sometimes see our loved ones in worse moods than anyone else because they don’t feel well. Focusing on and following God’s prescription to love them no matter what really does make a difference.

It’s not enough, though, to read this once, think how nice it is and promptly forget it. I have it posted in my bathroom and pray through a different verse from it each day. Over the last few years. I must have prayed through it more than one hundred times. You’d think I’d have it totally memorized, but my brain just doesn’t work that way anymore. The Holy Spirit does though. It astounds me how often I will be in the midst of a difficult situation, start feeling a little hot around the collar, and all of a sudden one of the verses from this passage pops into my brain. I wish I could tell you how perfect I am at following it all the time. I’m not. I’m learning, though. Step by step and prayer by prayer. It really does help me though. And when I’m working with the grandkids and teaching them, it’s awesome to see God using it there as well.

It’s time for me to reprint my copy as the shower humidity has crinkled my old one up. If I were really on top of things, I’d grab a roll of clear plastic contact paper, encase a printout of the verses in that, and hang it up. Then it would stay much nicer, much longer. I’d add some pretty pictures too. Simple works for me, though. How about you? If simple is good, just join me by printing out the verses as is and hanging it where you’ll see it often. For fancier, copy them into Word or another program and have a blast. If you’d like to share your handiwork, we’d love to see it.

Have a blessed day!

P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for SandwichINK’s free email newsletter (see sign-up box over to the right) , delivering daily articles and, sometimes some extra tid-bits of interest, exclusively for newsletter readers. When you do, head straight to SandwichINK’s very first contest – scroll to the bottom and let us know you signed up for the email and you’ll get a free entry to win a WalkerWonder, a lovely banner for a walker/rollater which would make a great gift for an aging parent or grandparent.

Teachable moments with grandkids rarely come at planned times . I can prepare ahead, have a great story book about Jesus or positive character traits, some wonderful Bible coloring pages and be all set for a special time with my grandkids.  Then I go over to babysit and all the plans get thrown out the window. The grandkids are sick, the grandkids have to be somewhere so there is no time, or they are just not in the right frame of mind for what I had planned. Those are the times I “punt” and we just read stories, sing songs, or do something else simple.

Then there are the times like today . Two are recovering from a bug and one still has it. I came over for the day with no real plans since I knew they weren’t feeling good. We had a great time in the morning working on some of the best paper airplanes .  (I’ll be writing about those later this week!) Then we headed upstairs for naptime. We have started a fun project for the summer with the Fruit of the Spirit (that’s coming up soon), so we’ve been singing a fun song to learn the verse and talking about the first of the fruits, love.

What started as a short story about Moses and the Golden Calf, turned into one of those  wonderful and special teachable moments all of us grandparents love! We started talking about Moses and his love for God. From there we talked about how God gave the ten commandments to Moses. I explained that the ten commandments could be summed up by Jesus’ words in Mark 12, “…You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength…You shall love your neighbor as yourself .” I added that Jesus also taught us to, “…love your enemies, do good to those who hate you .” (Luke 6:27b).

Grand-twin 2 asked, “Why do we have to love our enemies ?” I explained that if we are loving and kind to someone who doesn’t know Jesus, and they see that, then they might realize how real Jesus is and how much He loves them.

From there, I went on to tell them the story of Corrie Ten Boom , one of my spiritual mentors. She was a Christian who risked much and lost many to help Jews escape from the Nazis. I told them about the time, years after the war, when she met one of her meanest guards and she struggled with rage against him. Yet God spoke to her heart and enabled her to forgive this enemy and love him with Christ’s love, rejoicing that he was now a brother in Christ.  As Wikipedia puts it, “In her book Tramp for the Lord, she writes, ‘For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.’ She also wrote (in the same passage) that in her post-war experience with other victims of Nazi brutality, it was those who were able to forgive who were best able to rebuild their lives.’”

At 5 and 6, I’m sure my grandkids didn’t fully understand all that we talked about . I am thrilled, however, at the seeds God planted today in extra fertile soil and so grateful for the opportunity to be used by Him in this manner.