Redeem Your Time for Your Family.

By Billy Graham

Let us take time to get acquainted with our families. All the wealth which we are accumulating is not substituted to children whom we have no time to caress. We are not machines; we are not robots. The art of living and the secret of a happy home is for the members of the family to learn to give and to receive love. When we are gone, our families will remember us jot for our business sense, or for our wealth, or for our cleverness, but for our love: “now abideth faith, hope, and love; but the greatest, and the most abiding, is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Let us take time for family devotions. Too many families have left all matters of religion to the church; but the greatest, the most lasting, lessons of faith are learned when a mother’s or father’s voice is lifted in reverent prayed to God. Prayer together at the close of the day will make sleep come easier and will absolve the little hurts and harsh words of the day.

Grandparents.

Now there’s evidence based on interviews with children and grandparents that children need their grandparents and vice-versa. The study shows that the bond between grandparents and grandchildren is second in emotional power and influence only to the relationship between parents and children. Grandparents affect the lives of their grandchildren, for good or ill, simply because they exist. Unfortunately, a lot of grandparents ignore the fact, to the emotional deprivation of the young. Of the children studied, only five percent reported close, regular contact with at least one grandparent.

The vast majority sees their grandparents only infrequently, not because they live too far away, but because the grandparents have chosen to remain emotionally distant. These children appear to be hurt, angry, and very perceptive about their grandparents. One of them said, “I’m just a charm on grandma’s bracelet.” Positive roles that grandparents play are caretaker, storyteller, family historian, mentor, wizard, and confidant, negotiator between child and parent, and model for the child’s own old age.

When a child has a strong emotional tie to a grandparent, he enjoys a kind of immunity—he doesn’t have to perform for grandparents the way he must for his parents, peers and teacher. The love of grandparents comes with no behavioral strings attached. The emotional conflicts that often occur naturally between children and parents do not exist between grandparents and grandchildren.

Parents and Children.

A Godly parent is a child’s best guide to God.

The character of your children tomorrow depends on what you put into their hearts today.

What we leave in our children is more important than what we leave to them.

We shape tomorrow’s world by what we teach our children today.

A parent’s love never ends.

A parent’s life is a child’s guidebook.