Dear Kaylee,
Guess what? I get to see you a lot now! Your mommy is back at work and Nanna is taking care of you during the day. That means I get to see you, too! We spend about an hour together before I leave for work. Also, one day a week, I am going to take care of you, too. I get to watch you grow, grow, grow. At least after finishing three bottles on Friday- it looks like it!
Your mommy is glad to be back teaching her students, but she is sad because she isn’t with you all the time. It’s alright, though, because Nanna knows all about mommy stuff. After all, she is your mommy’s mommy. She is a math teacher like your mommy, too, so I guess you could say they are similar in many ways.
Your mommy teaches mainly 8th and 9th graders how to do math. These kids don’t usually like math because it is hard for them. Your mommy is a really good teacher and she gets along with the students, even if she is a little tough on them. They even asked her to give the graduation speech last year! They think she is fun to talk with, and they like to talk to her about things other than math. I know they are especially excited to talk about you! You visited your mommy at school on her first day back. So, now they know that Kaylee is a real, live baby!
Some day you will start going to school, too. In the meantime, you are in the school of life and you are learning what it means to be our little Kaylee. That’s my favorite subject!
Love,
Grandpa
How To Be A Christian Without Being A Jerk
Faith in real life
prison ministry…it’s all about love
I interview Bob Levy, a “rookie” member of our Epiphany Ministry team, and we talk about his experience at our recent weekend spiritual retreat at the prison.
Dana Hanson Show #43
Prison “Escape”
On an Epiphany Prison Ministry Spiritual Retreat, we all witness a powerful experience of the amazing freedom that comes through God’s forgiveness.
Episode #42 Dana Hanson Show
(music courtesy of www.makerofmusic.com)
Grandpa Diary #16
Dear Kaylee,
I just got back from a weekend spending time with young men who are in prison. This was a wonderful time to share God’s love. I made sure everyone had a chance to see a picture of how precious you are! I told them how much your mommy and your daddy and the rest of us love you. I used you as an example of what a gift it is for God to give me such a beautiful granddaughter!
A lot happened over the weekend. What a joy it was to see these men transformed right before our very eyes into people of hope! They couldn’t resist God’s love that kept pouring out from us, and his love was pouring out from them towards us and towards each other.
It was a sad weekend, too. It would be hard for you to understand how mommies and daddies might hurt their children. But, it happens. It would be impossible for you to understand how mommies and daddies might not want their children in their lives. But, it happens.
If you can imagine the worst things for a child to experience, that’s what what most of these young men experienced growing up. For some, no daddies in their life. For some, daddies who hit mommies and hit their children. For some, no mommies or daddies to take care of them. For some, they had to take care of themselves when they were 10 or 11…
No birthday parties.
Never hearing, “I love you.”
What must that be like??
You won’t know what that will be like, Kaylee. This will be something you will never experience. You are our own precious Kaylee, and we will protect, provide for, and love you with all of our hearts.
And that’s what is so amazing about God’s love! Growing up in that kind of love, makes it possible for you to share this love and watch it pour out to others.
Who knows, maybe some day you will join me, reaching out to young men or young women in prison, letting them know that God is their Heavenly “Daddy”- who will never let them go. Maybe someday, you will be God’s messenger who declares,
“There is freedom in Jesus!”
Love,
Grandpa
The “Theory of Everything”- in under 5 minutes?
Insights into the challenges of life in our society from brain research…really
when we love, we do something
Grandpa Diary #15
Dear Kaylee,
We spent much time together this weekend. I saw you Friday, Saturday, and Monday. One interesting thing that happened is your eyes changed in only a few days! It seems all of a sudden, they are much bluer. I could look into those eyes all day.
I wonder what goes on behind those eyes? You are taking in so much of the world and processing it for the first time. Every time you see something for the first time, it creates a new world for you. Same with sound, same with touch, same with smell; you are a living, learning human being.
For example, your backyard is being changed at your house. New landscaping, electrical wiring being put in, lights being put up, even a whole cement slab was torn out. When all this is going on, there is a lot of noise. It doesn’t seem to bother you, but I wonder what happens when the work is done? Will the quiet be different for you? I guess we could could hook you up to some instruments and measure your stress level, but I don’t think that is necessary.
Babies go with the flow. What you are learning quickly is you can’t control what is happening around you, but you can work on how you respond. You seem to be doing well. You sleep when you are tired and you eat when you are hungry. Mommys and daddys, grandmas and grandpas, we don’t always do so well on those two simple things. We don’t always sleep well, even though we are tired, and we don’t eat so well; we skip meals, grab easy, but not-good-for-you meals, we might even not have an appetite, or we eat way too much!
A lot of this has to do with worry. It does us well to stop and think about babies like you, Kaylee. You don’t worry about things like sleep or what you eat. You just do it because you know the people who love you will take care of what you need.
You expect it.
The one who takes care of all of us is God. What if we live our lives like you, expecting that the one who loves us will give us what we need?
Sleeping and eating? No, problem…
Love,
Grandpa
Grandpa Diary #14
Dear Kaylee,
I saw you twice this weekend! We’re getting more and more acquainted to this granddaughter/grandpa routine. I’m loving it. How about you?
Also, something else special is happening. It is always a treat to get to see your mommy, too, of course, but what is fun for me is I get to see your daddy a lot, too!
You see, Kaylee, I know your mommy as well as anyone, except your Nana (that’s what you’ll call your Grandma Hanson), and your daddy. You are going to be one who knows your mommy as much as anyone, too! Yet, when it comes to your daddy, I don’t know him as well. So, the more I see him, the more I get to know him.
Your daddy is a hard worker. He is getting lots of things done with the new house. He also is figuring out what this daddy stuff is all about. He loves being around you, but just like me and the rest of the daddys who have their first child, he is trying to measure what it means to be a daddy, too.
Your daddy does well at measuring. I have watched him with the tape measure several times, hooking up a washer, dryer, and stove, but that’s measuring in inches. When it comes to being a daddy, the unit of measurement is love.
Kaylee, guess what? They don’t have a tape measure long enough for your daddy to measure how much he loves you! He is figuring that one out quickly…
Love,
Grandpa
Even an idiot can be healed: How God used John Wimber to Rock my world
Grandpa Diary #13
Dear Kaylee,
You are over a month old now! I got to celebrate that special day in the usual way. Going to see you and then holding you for a long, long time. Had to change your diaper twice though, so what’s up with that? I guess I need to time my visits better. I don’t mind though, as I am seeing how quickly I can change you. Need to get a stopwatch…
Kaylee, I notice when I set you up on my knee now, you look over at your mommy. She is becoming your Sun and you are a planet orbiting around her. It’s just how it should be. God designs us so that our moms and dads become anchors in our lives from the beginning.
The first and most important lesson you need to learn is that you are totally safe and secure in God’s loving arms. Now, since you can’t see God you will think that doesn’t make sense. That’s one of the reasons Jesus came to earth. When he was living in our world, he didn’t see God, either. But, he lived like God was right there and he spoke with God like he was right there. Well, where do you think he learned that?
From watching his mommy and daddy. Jesus learned about God through spending time with his mommy and daddy. The Bible says this about Jesus as a boy.
“Then he returned to Nazareth with his mommy and daddy and learned from them deeply (Luke 2:51).”
This is why it says “Don’t be afraid” in the Bible so many times. Living in God’s Kingdom we are totally and completely safe no matter what. We figure this out from the very beginning in the loving arms of our mommy and daddy…
…or even the loving hands of our hyperspeed diaper-changing machine Grandpa!
Love,
Grandpa
