I Like Grandparents – On the Occasion of Grandparents Day

Rodney Marshall, Headmaster, Coram Deo Academy

November 6, 2008

Perhaps I like grandparents because before too long I will join your ranks. On the other hand, perhaps I like grandparents because of my own fond memories of fishing the cold deep lakes of northern Washington State with Grandpa Julian, or swinging onto the combine with Grandpa Jesse during the annual wheat harvest. Perhaps it is because I can still feel the deep sorrow as I wept by the coffin of Grandma Marion, who loved me always, or of sitting with Grandma Pauline as she turned 100 years old a couple weeks before her passing. She did not remember me at that moment, but when she learned I was living in Texas, she remembered stories of her grandfather’s homestead in Pilot Point.

Yes, Grandparents are important people in the all of our lives and especially at a place like this. For Coram Deo Academy is more than a school, it is a Christian learning community where teachers and students of all ages, from four to eighty-four, collaborate to develop a Christian mind. Indeed the education of a child for God is the most important investment on earth – one not to interrupt even in times of economic exigency. That is why my wife and I implore the help of God for all of us every morning at our breakfast table.

127:1 Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.

3 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one's youth.
5 Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

English Standard Version

Please join me now in the prayer of grandparents adapted from the Lutheran prayer book passed down to Robi from her maternal Grandmother.

Dear Father in heaven, I thank Thee for having made me a grandparent. I pray Thee, help me fully to realize my responsibility and the privilege of rearing children for Thee.

O Lord, Thou knowest that also Christian parents may become fearful when they think of their responsibility to provide for the body and soul of a child and the keep him/her on the way of salvation. Please forgive them when they are fearful, supply all their needs, and help them to perform their work in child training cheerfully and effectively. Give them the grace to agree in matters of child training so that together they may lead the children toward heaven and Thee. Give my grandchildren intelligent and responsive minds, and grant that I may always teach them what is right and good. Make them receptive to Thy Word; grant them the grace to receive it with joy and to believe in Thy saving love.

Give me a calm and even temperament, and help me to lead my grandchildren patiently and surely toward physical and emotional maturity. Make them useful and helpful in all things that, young or old, they may be a joy to Thee and a blessing to Christian people everywhere.

Give our school a rich measure of Thy grace and the willingness to maintain well functioning classrooms for Christian education as an aid to our child-training efforts. May parents, grandparents and Coram Deo Academy perform our respective duties joyfully, diligently, and thoroughly, to the glory of They holy name and to the salvation of souls. In the name of Jesus. Amen.