As some of you may know I have three wonderful, delightful, adorable, smart and amazing granddaughters; two of whom live in our home with Lynn and me.

Charlie, Kori and Jojo call this wonderful, delightful, adorable, smart and amazing old man Papa.

I am honored to be called Papa by my three little girls, and I am honored to be among the ranks of “Grandparents” everywhere.

Believe me (as you grandparents know), our granddaughters provide us with multiple moments of amusement, multiplied moments of loving adoration, and a multiplicity of outright annoyance too.

Let me give you an example of something that happened several years back when all three of these “little darlings” were living under our roof…

Jojo came running into the living room with a look of guilt written all over her face, and she called out to me, “Papa, c’mon! C’mon Papa!”

She motioned toward the guest room, and continued, “C’mon, Papa!”

So being the obedient grandfather that I am, I got up to see what had Little Jojo so ruffled.

As I entered the guest room (which not long before had been neat and orderly) I noticed that all the bed linens were haphazardly thrown on the floor, and scattered everywhere were the contents of a can of Ovaltine chocolate milk powder.

The bedspread and the sheets, the mattress and the carpet were covered in the stuff.

And there in the midst of it all were our two little dogs, happily licking up chocolate powder.

Jojo came to show me what she had done, but when I asked her, “Jojo, did you do this?” I used my gruffest voice.

Jojo looked up at me, saw my gruff looking face (to match my gruff sounding voice) she immediately blamed it on the dogs.

There was no one else in the room so she blamed it on the dogs.

“Minnie did it!”

“Buster did it!”

But then Charlie the Elder chimed in from the doorway, “No, Jojo did it!”

I asked Charlie how Jojo got the Ovaltine. We purposely kept it in a cupboard out of her reach.

Charlie and I walked into the kitchen, and there on the floor by the counter under the cupboard that was home to the Ovaltine, sat a little plastic stool that we usually kept in the laundry room.

“How did that stool get in here?” I asked Charlie.

Charlie admitted that she brought it in there so she could get the Ovaltine and a cup so she could make herself some chocolate milk.

Charlie has never made herself chocolate milk before, but that day she wanted to be adventurous and help herself; after all she was soon going to be a first grader.

But she realized that she couldn’t reach the milk in the refrigerator so she gave up her plans, and left the Ovaltine on the edge of the counter, and the stool there on the floor.

And then along came Jojo.

And the dogs.

And into the bedroom they went.

And Kori, the Middle One, stood by quietly and observed all of this nefarious activity without saying a word.

Kori kept looking at her Papa as his face got redder and the steam rose from his ears.

And she just quietly observed…watching and waiting at a distance.

It’s at moments like this that I become acutely aware of “the prayers of the saints,” and I know that someone, somewhere was praying for me.

Saying something like this: “Spare the lives of those little girls, Lord Jesus! Save them from the wrath of their grandfather, please Lord Jesus!”

Prayer was answered. I calmed down and made it a group effort to clean up the mess.

I checked on the dogs to make sure they were alright after consuming chocolate milk powder. And then things quieted down. Again, prayers were answered.

Later that evening, my dear, sweet, adorable wife had the nerve to say to me, “You know, it always seems that the girls make such a mess when they are alone with you. There’s chaos when you’re in charge.”

At that moment I silently prayed, as my face got redder and the steam rose from my ears, “Thank you, Lord Jesus for this dear sweet woman, grandmother of my wonderful granddaughters. This woman that you sent to test me! Spare her from the wrath of this grandfather.”