“Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts.” Psalms 145:3-4 NIV

The verse above tells us that God is great. And that one generation (group of people) tells the next generations of God’s mighty works. In other words, all of the people that were born and lived about the same time as your grandparents are one generation. The next generation would be their children, that’s right, your parents. And the next generation after that would be your generation.

My grandmother was born in 1900 (one generation). My mom was born in 1933 (the next generation). I was born in 1958 (my generation). My children were born in 1992 and 1994 (another generation). Four generations from my grandmother to my kids. When my grandmother was 89 years old, she wrote down the stories from her life. She shared these with all four generations and they will keep being handed down to the following generations. Pretty awesome!

She told funny stories from when she was a kid. Like this one:

Do you realize that I saw my first car when I was in the first grade. One evening on the way home from school, we looked down the road and here came a huge buggy but no horse pulling it. We realized it was on of those horseless carriages or automobiles that we heard our parents talk about. Othel, our 12 year old neighbor, yelled, “Run and get hold of the fence! Those things go so fast they will suck you right under their wheels!” So, all four of us ran and hung onto the rail fence along the side of the road and wondered why the two men in the car were laughing so hard.

Many of her stories were about how God had done great things in her life. Like this one:

This particular night I woke to hear Mildred (daughter) gasping for breath and called and called Ralph who was sleeping in the back bedroom but could not get him awake. He was simply exhausted from overwork and worry. We had no telephone as we could not afford it. What could I do? I looked at Mildred and her face was almost black. I dropped to my knees beside the bed and started praying for God to heal her and let us keep her. I think this was probably the most sincere prayer I ever uttered. Finally I heard Mildred give a little cough and then a long sigh and she turned over and started breathing and sleeping normally. God still can and does work miracles.

I keep making more copies of my grandma’s stories to share with my children and hopefully their children one day, too.

This week, ask your grandparents or your parents to share a story from their life with you. Is it a funny story? Is it a story about how great God is? Is it a story that you can remember and share with other generations, too? Maybe you can write down the story and start a collection of stories to share and tell others of God’s greatness.

Blessings and storytelling!