A life story from Grandly

Life can be hard. Parenting can be hard. It should be no surprise that grandparenting can be hard as well.

When I got married, I was a very committed Baptist and so was my husband. We both wanted a big family and we had one. Six kids. In quick succession.

I must admit we were idealists. We raised all of our children to the best of our ability seeking Godly wisdom and with as much thoughtful Christian teaching as possible. In their early years, they all went to children’s Bible camps and were involved in a Christian youth group while in high school.

Then it happened. Our eldest son went off the rails. Shockingly. We were stunned and we couldn’t believe it. We immediately asked each other what we did wrong. We felt very ashamed.

One by one, our children tanked. We went from being one big mostly-happy family to being a train wreck.

Parenting was hard. Self-doubt was off the charts. It was a lonely road.

Then we became grandparents. Our first two grandchildren came, weeks apart, to two of our daughters, neither of whom was married to the father. Two more arrived in quick succession. The same story. Four grandchildren, no marriages, two parents on the streets, the other two unemployed. I became the foster mother for two young girls because their mother was on drugs, homeless, and legally restrained from seeing her children. Then our second oldest daughter just “checked out” of everything. She abandoned her family for over two years. No one knew where she was. Our “son-in-law” was crushed by it. As grandparents, we said we wanted to help but he moved away with his son.

Grandparenting was hard.

Our children had given up their faith. Their sins were public and we were really wounded by them.

We went to a grandparenting seminar that said, “Never give up hope.” We decided to hope against the odds.  

Still, life was hard. We paid for marriage counseling, rent, Bible classes, medical bills, and private tuition. Our decision was to pray now, spend now, believe now, and have faith for the future.

Today, all of our children are married. Of the 12 children and children-in-law, 11 are believers. The lost have returned to be responsible parents. 

Our family story has taken a huge turn for the better. We often remind our children, “Parenting is hard. Life is hard. Yet miracles can happen in hard places.”  

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[Some details in this post were changed to protect the anonymity of the author and more importantly, the children and grandchildren.]

This story is reprinted from a Grandly post dated June 1 2024, copyright © Grandly Missions, 2024

Top image credit: Illustration of a Christian family before the cross, from Bigstock.com, © by Mike Kiev, stock photo ID: 12115253. Used with permission.