CREATIVE LETTERS

 

 

Sending your oldest child off to college can be traumatic for parents. At the same time it can engender reactions in grandparents as well. Parents, for example, may be concerned as to how the child will survive without them. A grandparent may have concern about how the parents will survive without the child.

Christian parents and grandparents will share a mutual concern for the spiritual development of a student during college years.

Don Odens decided that seeing his oldest grandson off to higher education required positive action on his part. Even before the new term began, he started writing letters.  That’s right—letters. The themes he chose were similar based around the phrase “You can expect to--.”

You can expect to not know everything!

You can expect to be poor!

You can expect attacks on your faith in Christ!

You can expect to be tempted to sin against God!

You can expect to face powerful sexual temptation!

His grandson will receive these letter approximately every ten days throughout the year. “My purpose in writing is to speak into his life as he has entered young adulthood,” says Don. “I want to buttress the things he has learned in church, from his parents, and in the Christian schools he has attended. In addition, I want to maintain lines of communication and an awareness that his grandfather cares deeply about him.”

I can’t think of a better care package to send off to grandchildren away at school.