A Letter To Every Grandmother
My Grandson Stopped Calling Me When He Turned 14. Then One Night At 11:07, He Texted Me A Bible Verse.
If you've ever stared at a text that says "Read" and never got an answer, this is for you. I'm 68, and for a whole year I thought I was losing him. Here's how God gave him back.
Updated Oct 23, 2026 · 7 min read
Tyler used to call me every Sunday after dinner. Every single Sunday, from the time he was 6.
He'd tell me about his science project, or the fish he caught with his dad, or a dream he had where our dog could talk. Some of those calls lasted an hour. I'd sit in my kitchen with the phone on speaker and just listen to him be a little boy.
And then he turned 14, and the calls stopped.
Not all at once. First they got shorter. Then they got skipped. Then one Sunday, I called him, and it went to voicemail, and I just sat there holding the phone.
I started texting instead. "Love you buddy." "How was your game?" "Thinking of you today."
Under each one, the little gray word: Read.
That's all. Read. No reply.
I know he's a teenager. I know it isn't personal. Everyone tells me that. But I'll be honest with you, because I think you'll understand: there were nights I cried over that little gray word.
The part that scared me more
It wasn't just that I missed him. It was what I could see happening to him.
His parents stopped going to church when he was about 9. Life got busy. Tournaments on weekends. I understood. But Tyler was growing up with a phone in his hand and nothing else to hold onto. He was quieter. More anxious. My daughter told me he wasn't sleeping well.
I tried, God knows I tried. I texted him Bible verses. Read. I asked him at Thanksgiving if he'd want to come to church with me sometime. He gave me a look, the kind only a 14 year old can give, and went back to his phone.
I watched him across that table and felt something I didn't have words for. Like he was standing on the other side of a river, and the river was getting wider every month, and I couldn't swim.
I was losing my grandson. And I was afraid he was going to grow up without God, too.
What I read about that window
My friend Barb at church told me to stop pushing and start praying. So I did both. I prayed, and I also started reading, because I wanted to understand what was happening to these kids.
The largest study ever done on where adult faith comes from was run by Harvard, Baylor and Gallup. They followed up on 202,898 people in 22 countries. The biggest pattern they found was whether faith was a regular, weekly part of someone's childhood. Those children were 2.56 times more likely to still be reading Scripture as adults.
And then this one stopped me cold. 63% of Christians came to faith between the ages of 4 and 14.
Tyler was 14. He was standing right at the edge of that window, and it was closing.
Harvard's Center on the Developing Child explains that a child's brain builds far more connections than it keeps. It slowly clears out the ones that don't get used. "Use it or lose it." What shows up again and again gets built in. What never shows up gets pruned away.
Lifeway Research found the strongest predictor of a healthy faith in young adults was reading the Bible regularly growing up. Only 29% of kids ever did. Tyler had never done it once.
I didn't need a study to tell me it mattered. But it told me something I did need to hear. It wasn't too late. But it was almost too late.
Something he could reach for on his own
Here's what I finally understood. Every time I sent Tyler a verse, I was pushing it at him. On my schedule, in my words. And a 14 year old will push back against anything you push at him.
What if I gave him something he could reach for himself? Privately. On his own terms. With nobody watching.
That's when Barb showed me the jar she'd given her granddaughter. A glass jar with a cork lid, full of little colored paper strips. 90 Bible verses, King James, sorted by feelings.
- Yellow for when you're happy
- Coral for when you're thankful
- Magenta for when you're angry
- Green for when you're anxious
- Light blue for when you're lonely
- Blue for when you're sad
No sermon. No chapter and verse to look up. Just, how do you feel right now? Reach in, and see what God says about it.
A teenager would never let his grandma read the Bible to him. But alone in his room at night, when he's anxious and can't sleep? He might reach into a jar.
I ordered 3. One for Tyler, one for his sister Maddie, who is 9, and one for little Owen, who is 6.
See the jar Carol gave her grandchildren →The note I tucked inside
I thought about it for a week, and in the end, I kept it very short. On a little card tied to Tyler's jar, I wrote:
"No need to call. If one ever means something, just send me a picture. Love, Grandma."
That was it. No pressure. No "you should." Just an open door.
On Christmas morning he opened it, said "Thanks, Grandma," and set it on the floor next to his new headphones. I told myself I'd done what I could, and I left it in God's hands.
January went by. Nothing. I didn't text him about it. It was the hardest thing I've ever not done.
11:07 on a Tuesday night
February 11th. I was already in bed when my phone lit up on the nightstand. I almost didn't look. At my age, a text at 11pm usually means something is wrong.
It was from Tyler.
A photo of a green strip of paper. Joshua 1:9. "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest."
And underneath it, 4 words: "grandma is this true?"
I didn't text back. I called. And he picked up.
We talked for 40 minutes. He had tryouts the next day and his stomach had been in knots for a week. He couldn't sleep. He said he didn't really know why he reached into the jar, he just did, and he pulled green, and that was the verse.
I told him yes, it's true. I told him about the time I was 15 and terrified, and how that exact verse carried me. I told him God has been with him every single day, even the ones he didn't feel it.
He was quiet for a while. Then he said, "Can you pray for me tomorrow?"
I have been praying for that boy every day for 14 years. That was the first time he ever asked me to.
What happened after
He made the team, by the way.
But that isn't the part I care about. The part I care about is that now, about once a week, my phone buzzes with a picture of a colored strip of paper. Sometimes with a question. Sometimes with nothing at all, just the verse. Once it was a magenta one with the message "lol this one is about me today."
I save every single one. I have a folder on my phone called Tyler's Verses. There are 31 pictures in it.
And his little sister and brother caught on, the way little ones do. Maddie, 9, sends me voice messages of herself reading her verse, very slowly and very seriously. Owen, 6, can't read much yet, so his mom reads it to him and he draws me a picture of it. I have a drawing on my fridge of what he says is Noah's ark, but might be a whale.
Last month my daughter said something I'll never forget. "Mom, he talks to you more than he talks to us right now. And he's been asking me if we can go back to church at Easter."
Why it worked when everything else didn't. It doesn't chase them. It waits in their room until they need it, and it meets them in the feeling they're already having. A UCLA brain study found that simply putting a feeling into words calms the brain's alarm center. So when Tyler reached for green, he'd already named what he was feeling. Then God's Word answered it.
And because it's right there every day, it builds a habit quietly. Researchers at University College London found it takes about 66 days of repeating 1 small thing for it to become automatic. There are 90 verses in each jar.
To the other grandmothers reading this
I know the ache I'm describing. The one nobody talks about at church potlucks. You love those grandchildren more than your own life, and somewhere around 12 or 13, they start drifting, and you feel yourself fading into the background of their busy, glowing little lives.
And underneath that ache, a deeper fear. That they're drifting from God, too. And that there's nothing you can do about it.
There is something. You don't have to compete with their phones. You don't have to preach. You just have to give them God's Word in a form they can reach for on their own, and leave the door open for them to reach back to you.
They might not say thank you on Christmas morning. Tyler didn't. But one night, when they're scared and it's late and they can't sleep, they'll reach in. And your phone will light up.
Please, one for each grandchild.
I almost bought 1 jar for the whole family. I'm so grateful I didn't.
Because every grandchild is a separate bridge. My relationship with Tyler isn't my relationship with Maddie or Owen. Each one needs their own way to reach God, and their own way to reach back to you.
Because a teenager will never reach into a shared jar. Not in the living room, with his little sister watching. Tyler reached into his jar, in his room, at 11 at night, because it was his and nobody would know. Privacy is the whole reason it worked.
Because you never know which one will need it first. I would have guessed Owen, my sensitive one. It was Tyler, the one who rolls his eyes. The one I was most afraid I'd lost.
And because every one of them deserves their own folder on your phone. I have a folder for Tyler's verses, one for Maddie's voice messages, and a fridge for Owen's drawings. 3 grandchildren. 3 jars. 3 separate threads tying each of them back to God, and back to me.
If I'd bought 1, I'd have 1 thread. And I'd still be staring at the word Read.
If there's a grandchild you feel slipping away right now, I want you to know it isn't too late. But please don't wait another Christmas. Give them something they can reach for, and leave the door open.
With love,
Carol
The 90 Day Bible Verses Jar
Up to 60% off + free shipping, plus a free Christian ebook set.
- 90 King James verses, sorted by feelings
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- Arrives in a gift box, ready to wrap
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- Already in over 500,000 homes, with 1 tree planted per order
Tip from Carol: tuck a little note inside each one. Keep it short, and leave the door open.
Sources: Global Flourishing Study, Scientific Reports (2025). Lifeway Research (2017). Lieberman et al., Psychological Science (2007). Lally et al., European Journal of Social Psychology (2010). Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University.
Carol's letter is a dramatized story based on the experiences grandparents have shared with us. Names and details have been changed. Individual experiences vary. Handwritten notes are a personal touch added by the gift giver and are not included with the jar.
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