Visit with Grandparents - Reflection from Rev. Mees Tielens, Curate

This week, my husband’s parents were staying with us. They live in Boise, Idaho, and several times a year they will come see us.  

caption: a sign on the door to welcome Grandma and Grandpa. You can see Grace is really into dad jokes right now. 

When I say see us, I really mean see Grace. And so all week Grace has had as much playtime as she wants. They took her on a ferry ride to San Francisco, have spent endless hours playing Uno and Barbies and watching her do the monkey bars on the playground and laughing at her jokes.  

I was watching them play this week and it occurred to me, we say God the Father and God the Mother, but maybe we should think of God like a grandparent more often. Parents get caught up in the minutiae of daily life sometimes, spending their mental energy on the daily grind of making lunches and doing laundry and telling their children to eat their veggies and counting to 10 after each puberty-fueled outburst or missed curfew, hoping that somehow, everything they’re doing will result in their children becoming decent human beings who will make the world a better place. But when there are parents to do the parenting, grandparents don’t have to tell kids to eat vegetables or do their homework. They’re just there to love them and delight in them.  

Grandma Nancy is a practical woman who raised four boys, and she doesn’t let Grace get away with everything. But she does say yes when she can, taking joy from Grace’s joy.  

And that is, I think, what God does for us. Yes, God knows our hearts, knows what we do wrong, but fundamentally, I don’t think God is as interested in keeping track of our flaws as God is in loving us unconditionally. God loves us with a grandparent’s heart, full to overflowing, ready at a moment’s notice to get down on the floor and play, or sit through a middle school band performance, to make us feel safe and loved and special.  

Not all parents are good parents. Not all grandparents are good grandparents. But even if this metaphor doesn’t work for you, I hope you can feel the truth behind it: that God loves you and delights in you, exactly as you are.  

The Lord your God is in your midst, 
    a mighty one who will save; 
he will rejoice over you with gladness; 
    he will quiet you by his love; 
he will exult over you with loud singing.  
(Zeph. 3:17)