Grammy's Bedtime Bible Stories
Kathy Brooks
Copyright © 2020 Kathy Brooks
All rights reserved
First Edition
NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING
320 Broad Street
Red Bank, NJ 07701
First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2020
ISBN 978-1-64801-139-9 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-64801-140-5 (Digital)
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Moses and the Ten Commandments
Acknowledgments
Many thanks along the way to Tyler, Dylan, and Wesley for their valuable input and suggestions, to Karen for her help with illustrations, and to Rhonda for her idea which started me on this long but fun journey. And a special thanks to Mimi for her invaluable help checking content and accuracy. All Honor and Praise to the Almighty God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
Introduction
This storybook was developed as an answer to a request from my middle daughter. Although she and her siblings were raised in a home punctuated by three-times-a-week church attendance, like many young families today, she and her husband are not raising their two boys to attend any church services regularly. However, she expressed a strong desire for her boys to hear and learn from the stories she remembered from her childhood.
Having three other grandchildren, I was inspired to write a collection of old favorite Bible stories, selected to convey a message and teach basic values and principles in language that the child of today can understand and relate to. In keeping with this modern approach, I have incorporated simple versions of modern ideas, such as intelligent design, evolution, the big bang theory, and even quantum physics that fit seamlessly with the overall story of the Bible.
These are stories about Bible events. While things could have happened the way I’ve portrayed them, I’m not proposing that they did happen that way. And although the language is simple enough for an older child to read, each chapter is designed to be read as a bedtime story by an adult with an opportunity for questions and discussions along the way.
As I worked through the process of creating this storybook, it occurred to me that there are probably many families who would enjoy and benefit from these timeless lessons on faith, hope, love, obedience, forgiveness, and salvation. We all want our children to be moral, honest, decent, and loving individuals. And all children ask the eternal question—why? “Why must I do this? And why should I behave like that?”
We are not here by accident. There is a purpose to life, and I have endeavored to provide material and guidance to give young families who may lack the training necessary to fill in the gaps left by sectarian education and hopefully provide, not just my grandchildren, but many others as well, with an answer to the child’s perpetual why? in an interesting and entertaining way. Above all, my purpose in writing this collection of stories is to possibly create an interest in things spiritual and spark curiosity to study the Bible for themselves as they grow older.
Chapter 1
Who is God?
Almost everyone has heard about God. When we offer thanks for the food we eat, we talk to our Father in heaven. Well, guess who that is? It’s God. He is the Creator and is pretty much everyone’s special Daddy. His Son is Jesus, who is part of being God too, and there is one more special part of being God, and that’s the Holy Spirit.
Do you wonder how there can be three parts of one God? It’s kind of like this: Mommy is your mom, but that same mommy is a daughter (your gramma’s) and a wife (your daddy’s) all at the same time. It’s just one mommy, but she is a wife, a daughter, and a mom all at once. God loves all of us, His children, and wants us to be good, to be happy, and to love Him back just like our own mom and dad do.
God is also a Spirit. That means He doesn’t have the same kind of body like we have. He never grows old, He never gets sick, and He never ever dies. He lives in a spirit world called heaven, and He is the King of all good guys and heroes. Remember, the good guys always win!
Would you like to hear some special stories about what the world was like a long, long, long time ago? That’s next.
Chapter 2
The Story of Creation
The stories about how the earth, the sun, the moon, the sky, and all the stars were created were told to and later written down for simple people a very long time ago. Back then, there were no cell phones, computers, and TVs. In fact, there were no pencils and paper either! If someone wanted to know about their great, great-grandparents, they had to ask someone who knew them or knew about them. When these ancient people listened to the stories and learned about their families, they would tell the stories to their own children. That is why storytelling was so important. Stories were the way that children, and grownups too, learned about themselves and their families. Then their children grew up and told the stories to their own children.
One of these stories was about the Creation, how our world was created. Nowadays, some people believe that God made the day and night, the earth, sun, moon and stars, the land and sea, and all the animals and people in six days, and since that was a lot of work, God rested