Our youngest grandchild is 11 months old. She is a "smiler". She has a full-faced grin for anyone and everyone she sees - she seems to genuinely love people. She will crawl up to them on Sundays after the worship and just sit there and smile up at them. I don't know whether she knows that she is irresistible, but she does seem to realize that everyone she meets is quick to reach down and pick her up. Her name is Katherine, and she is a cuddly ball of tonic for the soul.

But she is by no means the only such "tonic" that we have experienced of late. At the small church that we are blessed to be part of we have had three brand new baby girls in the past year. We also are blessed with another five children under the age of four. Our cup overflows, and how we know it!

We are in many ways the typical congregation in small town America. In the last few decades we have just seemed to get older and older, while all of our kids have grown up and headed for the big city. But in recent years we have started to burst at the seems with toddlers and babies. We have revamped our nurseries and have had to add new classes with new teachers. It has been a lot of work! At times it has been inconvenient. But, in all ways, it has been an injection of life into a local church that was more than ready for this new shot of energy and vitality.

In additional to the human smiley face Carolyn and I call our granddaughter, we have four other grandchildren to go along with our three kids and two in-laws whom are so good that we include them with our own. That's a total of ten descendants and counting. We have been blessed!

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Psalms 127:3, ESV

Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, Proverbs 17:6, ESV

The word of God states that children are a reward. How vastly different from the way that modern, wicked men describe them. I have heard people in high positions refer to children as if they were some sort of a punishment. I see hateful men and women demanding the right to kill them before they can escape the womb, because they are too self-absorbed to see children as they really are: A heritage, a reward, and the crown of the aged!

This week is a great week in America. We actually have a day in which we pause to give thanks to the One from whom all of our blessings flow. How different life would be for us if we didn't have "the smiler", or our other four precious grands who have indeed crowned our later years. How empty would our lives be without our three beautiful children who continue to be our heritage and our reward. How can we do anything less than thank our holy Father for these incredible blessings?

God is so good, and we are so thankful!