“I will sing of thy steadfast love, O Lord, for ever;

with my mouth I will proclaim

thy faithfulness to all generations.”

– Psalm 89:1

My grandma — grandma McK — never got her driver’s license.

She knew how to drive…sort of. She sat behind the wheel while grandpa instructed her in the fine arts of acceleration, steering, and braking. She practiced faithfully.

They quit the day she hit the accelerator instead of the brake, zooming up into a neighbor’s yard, stopping just short of the porch.

I understand yelling was involved.

After they forgave one another, she became a great customer of the local cab company. She used city buses. She rode with friends, or she walked. And grandpa was her ever-willing chauffeur.

As a child I never questioned her disinterest in driving, and I never heard the story of her driving lessons until after she’d died. It gave me a new appreciation of her grace under pressure!

How does your family share stories? In our family, photographs were tucked carefully into boxes and never looked at. Stories were saved for funeral dinners, and questions discouraged as “too nosy.”

Things are changing, though–

• We’re framing the photographs and hanging them on the walls.
• We’re asking questions before the people who know the answers are gone.
• We’re telling the stories to one another, and writing them down.

Family stories are a great way to bridge intergenerational gaps. They help us understand and appreciate one another; they teach us things we need to know.

Good or bad, they give us another way to talk about — to share — our faith.

As a grandma myself now, I try to be intentional about sharing family stories with my kids and grandkids. Sometimes, to be honest, they’re not all that interested, but I persevere, because family stories represent their history, their heritage.

They deserve to know and enjoy it. They deserve a chance to learn from it.

Tell the stories!

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Holly learned to drive as a teen-ager, and often drove her grandma McK shopping. You can hear more about her grandparenting adventures on her blog Grandma On Board.