Letters to my Grandkids: Sharing GodaEUR(tm)s Stories from the book of Genesis

By Dr. Sylvia Galvez

Letters to My Grandkids depicts the stories in the book of Genesis. The chapter letters are written in plain English and critiques to help my grandkids and others understand that our forefathers' family problems are still evident in our families today! Family issues are nothing new in the book of Genesis. Family separation in Genesis was prevalent because parents favored one child over another, there was sibling jealousy, greed among family members, and betrayal, which caused divisions in the families. Our world is suffering today because of the same problems that occurred in the book of Genesis. It is a sin to be stuck in anger toward a family member that causes division. The devil loves it!

Family separation has become typical in our world. It is a crucial problem with families today. Families do not have to be separated and angry because of unresolved issues. If you say you love the Lord with all your heart and soul but hate your brother, sister, parents, and neighbors, then who do you think you are fooling? Yourselves! God said to love your neighbors, your family, and then yourself last. You will be rewarded. This book will share the stories and life problems in Genesis. God promised Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph that he would care for them and their families because they were faithful and loved unconditionally. And that promise also applies to you if you continue to be faithful like our patriarchs.

This book will have you think before you decide to cause family separation. It will help you uncover past hurt and pain. It will humble your heart to forgive the ones that have hurt you!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781639614615

Book preview

The Bible

Greetings, I hope all is well with you. I want to share how there were once Bibles in public schools, and teachers prayed with their students. All that changed on June 17, 1963. The Supreme Court ruled out public school prayers and Bible reading (Culture War, 2018). According to some Christian scholars, since then, the following has increased:

Divorce rates

Teenage pregnancies

Abortions

Single parents

Children born without dads

Teen suicides

High school dropouts

Depression

Anger problems

Drug and alcohol abuse

Crime rate

Homosexuality

Atheism

Christians attending church less

This list can go on and on. Prayer and Bible reading in public schools was a way to keep juvenile delinquency down. The goal was to instill morals, values, and spiritual training. But I honestly believe God allowed this to happen because he gives us free will, free will to make our own decision. Nine men sitting in the Supreme Court decided to outlaw school praying and Bible reading in schools. Parents who did not believe in God complained that they did not want their kids to be restricted to a religious culture. Therefore, religion is banned from schools. Prayer and Bible reading should start at home! Our parents are the first teachers in our lives. Teach your kids and make sure they have a relationship with God and know his word.

The Bible was first written in the Hebrew language in 1400 BC (Before Christ) and a few Arabic passages. The second time was in Greek; third, in Latin; and fourth, in English. The first human author to write the Bible was Moses. God instructed Moses, Write down these words, for in following with these words I have made a covenant with you and Israel (Exodus 34:27). It was the tenth commandment written in the Hebrew language.

Moses is the author of the first five books of the Old Testament. You may hear people call the first five books in the Bible as the Torah, Pentateuch, Mosaic Law, the first five books of the Hebrew text, or the Book of the Law. I like to call it the first five books of Moses or the Torah. Throughout the reading, I will refer to each chapter as chapter letters. My goal is to share the stories and point out the behaviors of the people God chose. I want you to understand how much God loves you and how he created the world. It is history and real-life stories in the book of Genesis. The book of Genesis is the platform for our Lord Jesus Christ, its history repeating itself.

God has plans for everyone on earth if they believe and trust in his word. ‘For I know the plan I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope’ (Jeremiah 29:11). Thus, all God wants us to do is love one another and treat people with kindness. Do not hate! It is a sin to be angry and hateful toward your brothers and sisters on earth.

God

Greetings! I hope you find this letter interesting. I want to share information about how God’s name is used in the Old and New Testaments. Here are examples of phrases people use when speaking of God:

Our Savior

Heavenly Father or Father God

YHWH

Lord God

Spirit of the Lord or Spirit of God

The Scepter (Genesis 49:10)

Elohim, God, his power and might (Genesis 1:1, Psalm19:1)

El-Elyon, The highest God (Genesis 14:17–20, Isaiah14:13–14)

El-Olam, The everlasting God (Isaiah 40:28–31)

El-Roi, The strong one who sees (Genesis 16:13)

El-Shaddai, God almighty (Genesis 17:1, Psalm 91:1)

Adonai, Lord, the lordship of God (Malachi 1:6)

Jehovah (Yahweh), The Lord, God’s eternal nature (Genesis 2:4)

Jehovah-Jireh, The Lord will provide (Genesis 22:13–14)

Jehovah-Maccaddeshem, The Lord your sanctifier (Exodus 31:13)

Jehovah-Nissi, The Lord our banner (Exodus 17:15)

Jehovah-Raha, The Lord our healer (Exodus 15:26)

Jehovah-Rohi, The Lord my shepherd (Psalm 23:1)

Jehovah-Sabbath, The Lord is Hosts (Isaiah 6:1–3)

Jehovah-Shalom, The Lord is peace (Judges 6:24)

Jehovah-Shammah, The Lord is present (Ezekiel 48:35)

Jehovah-Tsidkenu, The Lord our righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6, Nelson’s Student Bible Dictionary, 2005).

Before I close this letter, I want to share some of my favorite quotes. To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him is the greatest adventure; to find him is the greatest human achievement (Saint Augustine of Hippo Quotes).

And according to George Washington, It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible.

Abraham Lincoln said, I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book.

Moses, the Chosen Hebrew

Hello, I hope all is well. I want to share a bit about Moses’s life so that you have some background information on his history. Moses wrote the first five books in Genesis. Noah is Moses’s grandfather who lived to be 950 years old (Genesis 9:28). Our roots came from Noah. There were eighteen generations between Noah and Moses.

Noah’s three sons were named Shem, Ham, and Japheth, who had their tribes and languages. They had sons and daughters after the flood (Genesis 10:1). These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to the lines of their descents, within their nations. From Noah’s sons came seventy nations that spread out over the earth after the flood (Genesis 10:32).

From Shem’s family tree came Joktan who had thirteen sons. From his thirteen sons, Nahor was born. Nahor had a son name Terah. Terah was Abraham’s father. Abraham’s family had thirteen generations, and from that family root came Jacob. Jacob had twelve sons and one daughter, even though the Bible mentioned twelve sons; Benjamin was the last son born. Jacob’s sons became the ancestors of the twelve tribes in Israel. All these are the twelve tribes of Israel (Genesis 49:28). Seventy came from Jacob’s family (Exodus 1:5), who were servants in Egypt. Moses came from this family tree.

God told Abraham in his sleep before Jacob was born, Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be servants and mistreated for four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as servants, and afterward they will come out with great possessions (Genesis 15:13–14). Abraham’s family was the beginning of a nation (Genesis 12:2). God promised Abraham that his descendants will inherit the land of Canaan, which is now Israel. God is referring to Jacob and his offsprings who are Moses’s immediate family members. Egypt is in the northeast corner of Africa, and that is where Moses was born. Moses’s family spent 430 years in this land (Exodus 12:40).

Moses’s father was named Amram, who lived to be 137 (Exodus 6:20). Amram married his aunt, his father’s sister named Jochebed (Exodus 6:20). Back in ancient days, people married within their family tribes. Moses had a brother named Aaron, and his family was from the Levi tribe.

In Egypt

The kings in Egypt saw that Moses’s people, the Hebrew population, were increasing, and they did not like it. Hebrews were God’s chosen people called the Israelites, until they returned from the Babylonian exile in the late sixth century BC. From that time on, they become known as a Jew culture. The word Hebrew means the other side (crossing the Red Sea). If you want to know more about what happened during the time of the king of the Babylonians who captured God’s chosen people, read the book of Jeremiah, chapter 20.

One day, the kings from Egypt said, Look, the Israelites are becoming a large population (Exodus 1:9). So they felt that they had to stop the Israelites from having more male children. They wanted to control the male population. The kings said, The Israelites have become much too numerous for us (Exodus 1:10). They were concerned, if a war started with their enemies, that the Israelites would join them and fight against the Egyptians and leave their country (Exodus1:9–10). Because the Hebrew population was increasing, the kings ordered the midwives to kill every boy born and allowed the girls to live. Again, they wanted to control the male population. The kings in Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shephard and Puah, ‘When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth, observe them on the delivery stool. If it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live’ (Exodus 1:15–16).

When Moses was born, his mother hid him for three months. She knew she had to do something because Moses was growing big. So she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile (Exodus 2:3). The Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses. When the king’s daughter opened the basket, she saw the baby and felt sorry for him because he was crying. She said, ‘This must be one of the Hebrew babies’ (Exodus 2:6). Moses’ sister asked the king’s daughter, Do you want me to get a Hebrew woman to take care of the baby for you?

She said, Yes.

And the girl brought the baby’s mother (Moses’s mother) to care for him (Exodus 2:7–8). Moses’s biological mother took care of Moses in the palace, and when Moses was old enough, she took him to the king’s daughter, who adopted him. She named him Moses because she said, ‘I pulled him out of the water’ (Exodus 2:10).

Moses lived to be 120 years old (Deuteronomy 34:7). He was raised and educated in the palace with Egyptian kids (Acts 7:22). As he grew older, he realized he was different from the other children. The Egyptian children teased him because he looked and spoke differently. Moses was a foster child. He stuttered and had a speech disorder. Moses grew up angry because he was different from the Egyptian kids and the rest of the family. He ended up killing an Egyptian man and ran away from home.

He spent forty years in Egypt and another forty years in the desert of Midian as a shepherd (Exodus 2:15, Acts 7:30), and his final forty years were spent wandering in the Sinai wilderness with the children of Israel (Deuteronomy 8:2), leading them out of Egypt to the promised land. He wrote the first five books of the Old Testament after leading the people out of Egypt. Little did Moses know God had a big plan for him, just like he has plans for all believers! You can read more about his story in the book of Exodus. Until next time.

Love, Grandma

First Chapter Letter

How God Designed the World

Greetings, grandkids. I hope you are doing well. I am so excited to share with you the first chapter in Genesis. Genesis means beginning. I have faith you will find this letter interesting and that you will learn from it. In Genesis, chapter 1, I will write about how God created the heavens and earth.

God is the love. He is the Creator of all things. God is omnipotent, which means all powerful. He is our father, mother, best friend, partner, warrior, and most of all, our leader. God forgives and loves us unconditionally. He loved us before he created us.

God gave his only Son to die on the cross for our sins! For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, and have everlasting life (John 3:16). God chose us to be part of his world! Because of that, we are to love him with all our hearts, love our neighbors, and then ourselves last. Always remember God is in control. It is my opinion that if negative things happened, it is because God has allowed it. It could be because we are paying for our sins or karma. If positive things happen in our lives, it is because God has blessed us. God allows things to happen in our lives to learn from our mistakes and not repeat them.

Jesus’s brother James, said we are to rejoice when we are facing trouble times in our life. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds (James 1:2) because there will always be a positive end.

In the beginning, God created the heavens, earth, man, and woman in six days. The seventh day was for rest. God created the universe outside of time and space, which means he figured out how he would make everything beforehand. God did not create hell. There is no hell underneath or on top of this world.

Hell, in my opinion, is created by people; hell is karma, our payback from doing sinful things in life. Many people suffer from all sources of problems, but I believe people make their hell.

The book of Genesis is in the Old Testament. It is the first book written in the Bible. I will be calling these letters chapter letters because they are chapters from the Bible and structured on each page differently, like letters to my grandkids. When you read these letters, you should have your Bible next to you to refer to the Bible verses.

God created the earth two thousand years ago. He planted the garden of Eden in the Middle East, known today as Iraq and Syria (Then and Now Bible Maps Insert, 2008). They were people of color in that part of the world, Black and Brown. They were labeled the poorest and worst behaved in ancient days, and because of that, I believe God adopted them and called them his people, the Israelites.

Although God chose to adopt the people from the Middle East, he loves us all the same. The color of our skin does not matter. It is what is in our hearts. We are all the same, simply different skin colors. The Bible does not say anything about skin color. However, it does mention other languages. In Genesis 11:7–8, the people in the world spoke one language. God scattered them all over the world because at one point, they were trying to build a city without his approval, the tower of Babel. And because of that, God confused the people with different languages.

God chose the nation of Israel to be his very own people. I believe God chose the Middle East to create the world because he planned on our Lord Jesus Christ to be born in Bethlehem, in the Holy Land, Jerusalem. He also planned on giving the Holy Land to Abraham and his descendants before they were born (Genesis 12:1–3). Jesus was from Abraham’s descendants (Matthew 1:1). God had it all figured out beforehand, just like he has our lives planned out if we believe in him!

In Deuteronomy 7:6–7, Moses said, Israel, you are the chosen people of the Lord God. There are many nations on this earth, but he chose only Israel to be his own. You were the weakest of all the nations.

He chooses the worst people to serve him as he did with me. I was an angry child, teenager, and young adult because my parents, Oscar and Josie Galvez, divorced. I was forced to raise myself for most of my teenage years. I dropped out of high school and had my first son at sixteen years old and two more before twenty-one. I was a single parent for many years and, eventually, went back to school and earned an AA, BA, MA, and doctorate. I went from an angry high school dropout to a successful business owner of twenty years and an author, with God holding my hand one step at a time. God did this for me, and I know he will do it for you if you believe and trust him.

God’s Creation

In Genesis 1:1–2, Moses described how God created heaven and earth. And how "the earth was empty, and darkness was everywhere without form, and the spirit of God was covering the earth (Genesis 1:1–2, Isaiah 40:13–14, John 1:3, Acts 17:24). In terms of empty and darkness without form, it is sharing how there will be times in our life when we will feel empty and in a dark place without direction, but you must trust and believe God can take you out of that dark feeling. God had a plan when he created the world. He saw the empty and dark space and wanted to bring the light to his world, and he did! Light is used to describe God’s Spirit and love that lives in a person. Many people who live a life with love are shining with the light. If your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness (Matthew 6:23). When Jesus spoke to the people, he said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life" (John 8:12).

I was once full of anger and walked in darkness for most of my teenage years and young adult life. I carried that anger with me for many years. My anger hurt a lot of my relationships growing up. I did not have a close relationship with my siblings and parents. I walked around mad all the time until I was introduced to God and his word.

I was in my early twenties when I surrendered my life to God. I asked God to forgive me for my sins, and he did! I have been walking with God for thirty-five years. I know I have his light shining on me. Thank you, Jesus for saving my life! If you feel you are walking in darkness, ask God to forgive you for your sins and ask Him to cleanse your heart and mind so that you can walk in the light. It will help you stay out of trouble. Ask God to come into your life and tell him you believe that his Son died on the cross for your sins and to forgive you for your sins. Once you say these words, God’s Spirit will ignite in your body, and you will be a different person. God’s Spirit will live in you and help you make the right decisions in life (Galatians 5:16–19). Trust Grandma when I say this!

In terms of God’s spirit covering the earth, he introduces his Son, Jesus Christ, as his Spirit. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and He was with God at the beginning (John 1:1 KJSB, 1988; NIV, 1990). The Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, and God are one, and they were together in the beginning when designing the world and creating humans. His love was covering the earth.

On day one, God created light and darkness and called it day and night (Genesis 1:3–5, Hebrews 11:3, Psalm 74:16).

On day two, God stretched the earth and waters and called it sky (Genesis 1:6–8, Proverbs 8:29, Jeremiah 5:22, 2 Peter 3:5).

On day three, God created the waters to be separated from the land and called the water sea and land ground (Genesis 1:9–13, Psalm 95:5, Hebrews 6:7, Luke 6:4).

God created the stars and moons on day four and marked the seasons, days, years, evenings, and mornings. Thus, the light and day were expended (Genesis 1:14–19, Deuteronomy 4:19).

On day five, God created the birds and the living things in the sea.

On day six, God created the wild animals, livestock, man, and woman in his image, and God told the man to rule over the animals (Genesis 1:20–23; Matthew 19:4; Psalm 104:24, 119:68).

You may ask yourself who God is. How did he create everything? The Bible does not say. What I do believe is that we have a purpose on this earth! We are to believe that our God gave up his only Son to die on the cross for our sins, and we must love our neighbors as ourselves while we are on this earth.

It is getting late, grandkids, until the next time.

Love,

Grandma

Second Chapter Letter

God Finished His Work

Hello, my precious grandkids. I hope all is well, and you are staying in prayer. In this letter, I will share what is written in Genesis, chapter 2. In this chapter, God finished creating the world on the seventh day, and he made the seventh day for resting and called it holy (Genesis 2:1–3, Deuteronomy 4:19, Hebrews 4:4, Isaiah 58:13). All the things that God made were generations of the heavens and earth (Genesis 2:4, Psalm 90:1–2). I believe we are blessed to be participants in God’s world and have family,