A recent reading of a blog inspired this post. Sometimes I am so drawn in to a blog that I want to scream it's message from the rooftop and make everyone read it for themselves. But since that is impossible, I figured I would just blog about it myself.
This topic has come up in conversation between friends and I, at my office, in several Sunday sermons and many other places. Perhaps this is God's way of telling me it's something worth pondering.
What is your legacy? What does that even mean? Webster defines "legacy" as: anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor. But does that definition really encompass the true depth of the question? Who will be your legacy? What will be your legacy? What will people say about you when you're gone from this world? Who has made you who you are? Who do you give credit to for the things/experiences in your life? What moment in your life do you remember as the most dramatic, life-changing event? What made it this way?
I have to agree with the author from the blog below. It's the people and relationships in my life that have made me the proudest. And it's these people who I want to gather and speak of the good things when they celebrate my life during my passing. Throw a huge party, invite everyone I've ever known and have a good time. Don't mourn my passing but celebrate my life, because after all, life really is a gift.
Please take a minute and read the post below. I've linked the original post below this text in case you wish to follow it on your own. I hope you benefit from his writing as much as I have.
Enjoy!
There was this scene in Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn or maybe Disney's "Tom & Huck" where one of the boys fakes their death and then sits in a perch up above the ceiling and witnesses their funeral through a crack in the wall. They're eating up all the sweet things people are saying about them. That scene always stuck with me. I don't daydream about my funeral for the same reason that those riffraffs did though. I just picture myself in the same situation. I'm in some spot up above (heaven?) and I can look down and see everything. More importantly though, I can see everyone. And that's why I enjoy this daydream. You see, I see something in this room that makes me happier than just about anything. Maybe not happy...but a deep, deep contentment. I see everyone who's ever played a role in my life, all in one room together.
I see my family circled around, laughing at that time I missed the bus and sat at the bus stop for 3 hours thinking it was just running a little late that day. I see my best friends since childhood. Andy and Brett, exchanging southern accents with my best friends from Eastern Kentucky, Michael and Josh. I see my freshman year roommate, Matt, free-styling for my junior-year boys, Adam, Daniel and Zach. I see all my high school boys dishing out our old crazy encounters with the current group of crazy high school boys I minister to. I see my current mentor and wise counsel, Taido, lost in deep theological conversation with my previous mentors, Stephen and PJ. Actually, they're all probably laughing about some SNL skit involving a few dudes on a boat, but don't tell anyone that. I see my wife with all of her best girl friends, together at last, planning a Sex and the City night at her place. In the middle of all of this, I see my legacy. These people. These friends.
If there's on thing I'm "proud" about, it's these people and the relationships we share. More than anything else in this world, I value relationships. My relationship with my Maker. My relationship with my love. My relationship with my family. My relationship with my friends. These are the people that make me me.
I just got back a few days ago from a Colorado ski trip in the Rockies with our high school ministry. Somehow I convinced my dear friend Zach to come down from Chicago to join me on the trip. (He's actually unemployed...so it really wasn't that hard!) Zach jumped in immediately and began forming friendships one-by-one with these students. By the end of the week, they were asking for him to move to Arkansas. We had our first meeting with the students since the trip last night and I cannot express to you the joy these students had in seeing Zach one more time. Zach was actually supposed to leave town last night. But with the students begging for him to stay a few more days (and me doing a little pleading myself!!), Zach decided to stay a little while longer. Sure he'll get something great out a little more time in the Natural State. But the real winner is me and those that get to experience a little more of him. That's just it. That's everything.
Here's the thing: Zach and the rest of the people that God has put around me are my legacy. They're all I got. Even more, they're all I could want. I get no more joy than watching my friends enjoy each other. Nothing satisfies me more than watching my family happy together, you know...really happy. I love that God made me that way. I love that God has blessed me with such good people. I can only pray that you have half of what I've had. It'll be more than enough. It'll be everything.
