Nonna’s kNOWledge

THE GIFT OF TIME

written by Carolyn Joy

My dear grandmothers and sisters in Christ, whatever you call yourself (Grandma, Nonna, Nonni, Nana, Glama, or Gigi), we all have one thing in common: we are blessed! We are blessed to have lived long enough to see our own children experience the blessing of children. Behold, children are a heritage and gift from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. (Psalm 127:3 ESV)

I have learned that we must never take for granted the gift of time that God has given us. The clock is always ticking and time is constantly disappearing, like the last drop of the sun getting drawn into the horizon at sunset. We cannot retrieve the past or any moments we missed. Our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren (if we live long enough) are the grandest blessings in our lives, and the time we devote to them is a precious commodity. I want to encourage you that the time you spend with them now will be time well spent, for as you pour into them, they will learn from your lifetime of sometimes hard-earned knowledge, enabling their lives to grow richer and, perhaps, their path easier. While their lives stretch ahead, we enter our final chapters, so there is no time like the present. Each moment is a gift that we can offer them.

I presently have three married children and eleven grandchildren. Now, eleven years after the birth of my first grandchild, my family cherishes every special occasion and purposefully celebrates together. We preplan, plan and sometimes spontaneously secure our gathering times. It is our greatest gift to each other - the gift of time! Because of our rather large and growing family - sometimes I feel as if we are toting around our very own elementary class - I have learned that our deepest conversations, teachable circumstances, and heart-felt situations happen while we are living life each moment. We are weaving our hearts together while we drive in the car, bake cookies, put together jigsaw puzzles, play games, cook, eat, and just cuddle.

Carving out time for those special moments with my grandchildren enables me to bestow my age-wise wisdom upon them. Like the time I taught my granddaughter to crack the egg in a small bowl before putting the egg in the cake batter. Or the time I taught my granddaughter how to climb the climbing wall and overcome her fear. I have used driving time with the kids to teach “opposites” and “rhyming words.” I taught my grandson how to play a song on the piano. As a writer, I have been teaching each one of them how to journal, beginning when they were very young and just able to draw pictures.

The most important time I have spent with my children and grandchildren is pointing them to Jesus. This is an ongoing lesson, which happens while cracking eggs, playing the piano, climbing a wall, and, yes, studying God’s Word together. Proverbs 22:6 says, Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it. (ESV)

The time God has given our hearts to beat in unison on this earth with the hearts of our grandchildren cannot be matched. We are not guaranteed tomorrow, so don’t waste a moment. Give the gift of time... NOW. Nonna’s chuckles:

Nonna’s chuckles:

Granddaughter (age 5): “Can I come out of my room now?” My daughter (bewildered): “Oh, I’m sorry… Did I punish you?” Granddaughter: “Well, I stuck my tongue out at my brother and I am not supposed to, so I punished myself.”