"My friends can afford to help their grandkids with college—I can barely help with anything."
How it sounds in your head: You see them writing tuition checks, setting up college funds, being the generous grandparents. You want to help but your budget is tight. You feel like the poor relative, the one who can only give smaller gifts, the grandparent who can't make a real difference financially.
"For if there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has, and not according to what he does not have."
-- 2 Corinthians 8:12Religion—the lie that your value as a grandparent is measured by your financial contribution and generosity equals dollars.
College costs are staggering and you see other grandparents stepping in with significant money. Your grandchildren may actually need help, and you feel the weight of not being able to provide it the way others can.
She gave two small copper coins, all she had to live on, while rich people threw in large amounts. Jesus said she gave MORE than all of them—God measures the heart, not the amount, and declared her offering greatest in the kingdom instantly.
I REFUSE the lie that my value as a grandparent is measured by my checkbook. IT IS WRITTEN that God accepts what I have, not what I don't have, and measures my willing heart over my dollar amount. I carry the blessing of Abraham—God multiplied a widow's last meal into years of provision. IT IS WRITTEN that I am blessed in my storehouses and all I set my hand to. My grandchildren are blessed because they have ME, not because of my bank balance. I am the head and not the tail, above only and not beneath, and God's favor on my life spills onto my family.
Your Father sees your heart, not your account balance, and He's already moving on your grandchildren's behalf in ways money can't buy. Like the Father who gave the returning prodigal everything—not because the son earned it but because of who the Father IS—your grandchildren receive blessing through you because of covenant, not cash.