Teaching God’s Promise of Hope Through Suffering
by Joannie DeBrito, Family Support Specialist
Helping Grandchildren Trust God Through Life’s Hardships
Every grandparent wants to prepare their grandchildren for a life of faith. Yet one of the hardest truths to pass on is that following Jesus doesn’t mean life will be easy. None of us likes to imagine our grandchildren suffering. But helping them understand God’s promises—including His promise that trials will come—can actually strengthen their faith for the years ahead.
While we as humans cannot always be trusted to follow through on our promises, God can. In this blog, Dr. Joannie DeBrito will discuss a promise of God that we, as grandparents, would be wise to teach our grandchildren, obviously with the support of their parents. Doing so is likely to make them more resilient, deepen their faith in God and contribute to a longing for eternity.
Think back to a time when someone made a promise to you. Did that person keep the promise, forget about it or break it? You’ve probably experienced broken promises yourself. Perhaps someone disappointed you, or maybe you’ve struggled to keep a promise you genuinely intended to keep. Thankfully, God is never like that.
Maybe you’ve witnessed a young grandchild learn about promises and begin to talk about them endlessly. “Pweeze Gwamma. I pwamiss I’ll be quiet if you give me a kooky.” While our best intentions may not come to fruition for any number of reasons, we can depend on God’s promises of eternal life, salvation through faith in Jesus, and His never-ending and always present love for us. I have previously written about how to help your grandchildren understand these promises.
Why We Need to Teach the Whole Truth About God’s Promises
They all bring dreamy thoughts of communion with Jesus forever, endless worship and unceasing peace, comfort and joy. But there is another promise that is sort of like the proverbial pink elephant in the room. We all know it’s there, but we don’t want to talk about it. It’s a promise made on more than one occasion in the Bible. We think that talking about it will make things worse because it’s an unpleasant promise. Actually, talking about it allows us to connect honestly and vulnerably with one another, to offer the grace and compassion of Jesus Christ to others and to teach our grandchildren a very important, yet often neglected truth about the human experience. This very often has the unintended consequence of making their lives harder and contributing to having a crisis in faith that may result in rejecting Christianity. That isn’t the whole story, though. Jesus also promises His presence, His peace, and His ultimate victory over suffering.
John 16:33 says that Jesus told his followers:
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (ESV)
While describing Paul and Barnabus’ discipleship of followers of Jesus, the Bible says that they were “making the followers of Jesus stronger and helping them stay in the faith. They said, ‘We must suffer many things to enter God’s kingdom.'” Acts 14:22 (NCV)
2 Timothy 3:12 also references human suffering for those who put their faith in Jesus Christ:
“Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”(ESV)
That may sound discouraging at first. But Jesus never gives us this promise without also giving us hope.
If one is not aware of this repeated promise in the New Testament, reading the Old Testament will provide plenty of examples of human suffering that are caused by acts of nature, man’s humanity to man and often, by poor decision-making. Indeed, suffering has been, and is, a part of all human life. So, it’s odd that the most common reaction to suffering at all stages of life is shock. Why do so many suffering people say “Why me, God? Why my husband, wife, mom, dad, sister, brother, son, daughter, cousin…?” Those questions are natural. Most of us have asked them at some point. Yet Scripture gently reminds us that suffering is not evidence God has abandoned us—it is part of living in a broken world while following Christ.
Why Understanding Suffering Builds Stronger Faith
In many ways, our culture has become increasingly protective of children. While our intentions are good, we sometimes shield them from experiences that help build resilience. While there are certain things they shouldn’t experience or should be protected from at various ages, from a very young age, they need to be allowed some suffering that is appropriate for their age. This will help them begin to learn that suffering is a normal part of life. While there are no easy answers in the middle of suffering, Scripture reminds us that pain is part of living in a fallen world.
We all need to learn some good ways to cope with suffering at each age. Parents and grandparents must, of course, protect children from actually being harmed in any way that would cause physical or emotional damage, but children need to experience hurts that help them learn good boundaries and good coping skills. There are many appropriate age hurts that contribute to the accomplishment of important development skills. Learning to cope with suffering begins to build resilience in children. Here are some specific suggestions for allowing suffering and responding by teaching some coping skills. Remember that your children are the primary parents so you will probably want to discuss these ideas with them before you use them with your grandchildren. Also, note that the following suggestions are for typically developing children. If your grandchild has a diagnosed or suspected disability, these suggestions may not apply to the child. Your grandchild’s pediatrician would be a good place for your children to learn realistic expectations for the child’s development and how to support it and pass that information on to you.
Practical Ways Grandparents Can Build Resilience
Responding Wisely to Attention-Seeking Behavior
Newborns have only one way to communicate. As we all know, they all cry, some more than others. They may cry because they are hungry, thirsty, wet, hurting in some way (as in the case of colic) or because they want to be held. These are all legitimate needs for an infant and providing for their needs is an essential part of the infant developing trust in their caregivers. Trust is the foundation on which emotional health is built so by all means, hold, rock, cuddle and soothe that beautiful new baby as often as he or she needs your attention.
By 9-12 months, however, those sweet little ones have begun to learn about cause and effect and that if they cry, someone will come to help them. At this point, they cannot communicate effectively with words so cries continue to be the most common way they communicate. If your grandchild is approaching the end of his or her first year and you notice an increase in crying even when there does not appear to be a good reason for it, the chances are that the baby is beginning to use tears to get your attention as often as possible.
Attention seeking really ramps up when babies become toddlers, with parents and grandparents often laughing as they see a child crying fake tears and mastering the art of a dramatic temper tantrum. This is the time when, although the child may feel as if he or she is being harmed by not having your full attention 24/7 and is therefore suffering, your grandchild is actually experiencing a normal hurt and has an opportunity to learn a new way to cope. I was able to do this for a toddler I babysat once per week when I was in my 20s. Each week, the parents would lament the awful week they had with their child because she wanted to be held every waking moment and would not tolerate being left in her crib alone for more than an hour at night. So, her parents took turns holding her all night long. They had confirmed with the child’s pediatrician that there was nothing that should have prevented her from sleeping through the night, alone in her crib. On one night when this toddler was particularly upset, I decided to try something that I had learned about -behavior modification. I stood outside her room and heard her cry for me and the moment she stopped crying, I would go in, pick her up and give her attention. Then, when she started to cry again (assuming she didn’t have a real need for something like a diaper change) I would calmly put her down in her crib and walk away. This went on again for many hours. I was reinforcing the quiet times by giving her attention and giving the message that crying would not get my attention. Eventually, this little girl fell asleep. The next morning, her mom called me and said “What did you do with Annabelle (not her real name) last night? She slept through the night for the first time in her life.” I told her mother what I had done, and she was grateful to learn a new strategy. Now, honestly, I have recommended this strategy for many parents over the years, and all have reported that it has worked well but I have never seen a child respond in just one night. If you have a grandchild who appears to you to be manipulating everyone with tears and tantrums, talk with the child’s parents about trying this strategy.
Attention seeking often continues all the way through high school with older children trying to pull adults into sibling rivalry issues, pre-adolescents trying to attract attention via making unusual changes to their appearance and teenagers participating in risky behaviors, often just to get the adults in their lives to notice them. The principle is the same here: Reinforce good behavior and do not reward poor behavior.
Letting Children Learn Through Age-Appropriate Struggles
As children grow, they become more independent and they need lots of encouragement to try new things. They will experience plenty of hurts as they fail at a new skill, sometimes after many attempts. As adults, it’s hard for us to watch them fail so we often try to fix their failures or direct them to do other things that we know they can do successfully. It makes us feel better but at the same time, interferes with a learning experience for the child.
Think about your own life for a moment. Have you learned more from your successes—or your failures? Most grandparents would say their greatest growth came through difficult seasons. Also, have you learned more from trying to come up with a solution or when someone solved a failure for you?
This is addressed in Romans 5:3-5 when we are asked to do something that is counterintuitive. We are encouraged to have joy in our pain.
“…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” (ESV)
At every age, it’s best for us to let kids fail. Allow them to try to come up with their own solutions which we should let them try, unless doing so is going to cause some sort of real harm. The goal is to let them feel some hurt to help them build that endurance and hope that is referred to in Romans 5:3. It’s also to let them learn humility as we all do when God allows us to fail and he doesn’t intervene to fix things for us.
Teaching Patience Through Work and Waiting
Finally, as children grow old enough to do things for the family that require much more work than weekly chores, I suggest a work and wait program. The more they have to work to earn money or privileges and wait to see the benefits of that work or get paid for it, the more patience they develop, and patience helps us to endure suffering. When we constantly remove every hardship, we may unintentionally keep grandchildren from developing the perseverance God wants to build in them. On the contrary, teaching patience through working and waiting creates some humility and teaches them the patience they will need to face greater suffering in the future.
Ecclesiastes 7:8 reminds us of this:
“Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.” (ESV)
James 1:2-3 refers to the testing of faith which nearly always requires patience and what that patience produces.
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” (ESV)
Helping Grandchildren Develop Enduring Faith
Character Grows Through Perseverance
At Legacy Coalition, we are committed to intentional discipleship of our grandchildren so they will come to put their faith in Jesus Christ. By showing them that they are loved and valued but not deserving of constant attention, especially when they are misbehaving, they begin to cultivate humility. By allowing them to fail and come up with their own solutions and better ideas for success in the future, they often embark on a long road to success that produces endurance for the suffering that will be coming in their futures. They then begin seeking the relief that can only be found in faith in our Lord and Savior. Working and waiting creates a longing, a hope for an end to the wait and excitement for what is to come. The patience that comes from learning to wait leads to a deep desire to the end of all suffering which can only be found in a life surrendered to Jesus Christ and the certainty of full peace in eternity.
Pointing Grandchildren Toward the Hope of Eternity
Grandparents often have a unique opportunity to help grandchildren interpret life’s hardships through the lens of faith. Because you have walked through your own seasons of disappointment, grief, and unanswered questions, you can gently remind your grandchildren that God has been faithful through every one of them. Your stories may become some of the most powerful lessons they ever hear.
Your Influence Matters More Than You Know
As grandparents, we cannot remove every hardship from our grandchildren’s lives—and ultimately, that isn’t our calling. Our calling is to faithfully point them to the One who walks with them through every trial. As they learn to trust Christ in both joyful and difficult seasons, their faith can become deeper, stronger, and more enduring. That is a legacy worth leaving.
