3 Games of Uno

One of life’s greatest joys is having grandchildren. The Bible says in Proverbs 17:6, “Children’s children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.” I am so very privileged to have 12 crowns named (in order) Mark, Micah, Brooklynn, Alexis, Dominic, Corban, Ethan, Marissa, Haylie, Jaclynn, Gianna, and Jaydon…whew! (and since this was originally written we now have twins Madelyn and Colton, and Connor). One of the definitions of a crown is a distinction or reward for achievement – I would like to liken having grandchildren it to the icing on a cake. I had the wonderful privilege of being a mother, (that's the cake part) enduring the pregnancies, labor, sleepless nights, teething, illnesses, disciplining, and teenagers! Thankfully I have also enjoyed the immense pleasure of seeing them saved, grow in grace, develop a walk with God, get married, and become parents…giving me my grandkids - the “crowns” mentioned in Proverbs 17.

One of the blessings in being a grandparent that I did not anticipate is how much I could learn from those precious little munchkins. Most recently the Lord gave me a great picture of how much the Lord enjoys our coming to His presence through my oldest grandson Mark. Mark is 7 ½ years old and loves to play games (or should I say “win” games?). When we go to visit he always likes to have us play a board game, a video game, or perhaps one of his favorite games - Uno.

On a recent visit he wanted to play a game of Uno, but we were unable to play because it was just too late. He had to go to bed, and we were set to leave early in the morning. Mark was so disappointed and pleaded and pleaded with us to please stay long enough to play a game. That was not possible as we had obligations and had to be home at an appointed time; so being the nice Grammy that I am I told him that if he got up early enough I would play with him in the morning. That seemed to suffice and he went to bed for the evening.

What I did not expect was the precious sight we found in the morning…you see Mark, wanting to be sure that he did not miss the opportunity to play a game with me got up sometime in the middle of the night and camped right outside our bedroom door! When my husband got up at 5:00 there he found Mark all curled up in a blanket on the floor in the hallway –is that not the most heartwarming compliment? He wanted so badly to be able to play a game with me before we left that he sacrificed his comfort, and even his sleep! So, at 5:00 am through burning eyes I sat with my grandson and played 3 games of Uno. We both had fun, and he won 2 of the 3 games we played.

So, what lesson did I learn? Well, the Lord reminded of Proverbs 8:17 which says, “I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.” The Lord promises that when we seek Him early we shall find Him. I love spending any time I can with all of my grand babies, and I especially love when they want to spend time with me! On that day Mark and I were able to spend a little extra time together because he sought me early – and the fact that he sought to spend that time with me made me feel all the more loved and pretty special. Now, my challenge is this: how often do I sacrifice sleep and comfort to get up extra early just so I can spend extra time with the Lord? How often do we earnestly seek Him early? It seems that more often we seek Him “at our earliest convenience” instead of early.

Lord, thank you for this precious and practical lesson you’ve taught me through the love of my grandson and thank you for letting me not only seek you, but find you. I pray that perhaps all of us can learn from the simple lesson and that we’ll all be encouraged to seek our Lord early and enjoy the time we are able to have with Him when we do.

Have a wonderful day!