What Legacy Will You Leave?
One generation will declare Your works
to the next and will proclaim Your mighty acts. – Psalm 145:4
Many years ago a conversation turned to church
attendance. My parents tried to pretend that our family had always attended
church. No. We hadn’t. I refused to go along with the lie.
My Dad brushed it off, saying we had only stopped for
a few years. “My entire childhood,” I said. “I barely have any memories of
going to church because I was so young when we stopped attending.”
He was embarrassed, trying to hold onto a lie even as
he was confronted with the truth.
I started attending church when I went away to
college. It was years later before they returned to a church. My parents wanted
the world to believe they were dedicated to Christ. I wonder how all of our
lives might have been changed if they’d truly lived the life they pretended to
have lived.
They were good people. They were. And sometimes they
were good to me. Other times they were cruel. They taught me to have compassion
for what I can’t see in the lives of others. Appearances can be deceiving. There’s
truth to that old cliché.
One of the few memories I have from those early church
days came from a great aunt who taught me “Jesus loves me.” We sang that sweet
song in Sunday school class. It was just the two of us because that little
country church didn’t have any other children my age.
One grandmother begged for us to attend church with her.
Mother wouldn’t hear of it. What was she afraid of? Why did she hate God so
much? Maybe it wasn’t about Him but rather her need to resist her own mother.
We all suffered for it.
I’ll never know the reason. I doubt she knew. In later
years she grew stronger in her faith. Time has a way of doing that, doesn’t it?
When we look in the mirror and realize most of our life has passed, we focus
more on where we’ll go when it’s all through. But do our hearts really change?
None of this is about us. It’s about God. It’s always
been about Him and His Glory. That offends us somehow. Wasn’t it supposed to be
about us? Weren’t we supposed to be first?
I have no children. I have no one really. Yet I am
focused on leaving a legacy in the women whose lives I touch. I want them to
know that Jesus loves them. It’s a real, tangible love. When we can’t count on
anything else, we can count on that.
Life’s journey is not easy. It was never intended to
be. Mixed with joy and gladness comes darkness and pain. He is our companion,
our security, our hope, through it all. Do we share that with others? Or do we
stay silent rather than “offend” someone who wants to take credit where credit
belongs to Him?
Every day brings opportunities to tell others about
your faith. Do you? Do you give God credit for the good He brings to you? Do
you praise Him even when life is falling apart and you can’t see the way?
What legacy will you leave behind?
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