I am crafting a legacy every. single. day.
People will remember me for who I am, not who I wish I had been.
Age doesn’t magically transform anyone into a better self than that which they have been practicing to become.
Read the rest here: One Day I Will Be A Memory- I Want To Be A Good One.
Busyness has become a national idol-we rush from commitment to commitment, signing up to fill every single minute with something, anything that makes us feel important, valuable, irreplaceable.
Of course we have job and family obligations-as we should-but we don’t feel fully accomplished until we have colored in the edges of our calendar until no white space remains.
Because we think that if we don’t show up, people will miss us. We think that if WE don’t do this or that, it won’t get done. We are absolutely certain that our input is critical to the success of every mission, every committee, every project.
Can I let you in on a little secret? It’s not.
One of the inconvenient and difficult truths that has been burned in my brain since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven is this: his absence didn’t make a bit of difference to the world at large.
Read the rest here: Who’s Gonna Miss You Baby?
Oh, how easy it would be to become bitter!
If I’m honest, part of me just wants to tell the world to “Get lost!”.
But the wiser part of me knows that’s neither a helpful nor healthy response to even this most awful burden of child loss.
Lament is how we bring our sorrow to God. Without lament, we won’t know how to process pain. Silence, bitterness, and even anger can dominate our spiritual lives instead.
~Mark Vroegop – Dark Clouds Deep Mercy
Because my bitter spirit wouldn’t stop with me.
Read the rest here: Bitterness Is A Terrible Legacy
I used to tell my children that they would not wake up one day and be a certain kind of person on their eighteenth or twenty-first birthday if they were not working to be that person right now.
And I remind myself that I won’t suddenly be a better version of me just because I cross the threshold of senior citizenship.
Age doesn’t magically transform anyone into a better self than that which they have been practicing to become.
If I am kind and gracious and loving today, then I will most likely be so tomorrow.
If I am bitter and spiteful and petty right now, my heart won’t open wide just because of a birthday that ushers in a new decade of life.
I am crafting a legacy every. single. day.
People will remember me for who I am, not who I wish I had been.
Oh, how easy it would be to become bitter!
If I’m honest, part of me just wants to tell the world to “Get lost!”.
But the wiser part of me knows that’s neither a helpful nor healthy response to even this most awful burden of child loss.
Lament is how we bring our sorrow to God. Without lament, we won’t know how to process pain. Silence, bitterness, and even anger can dominate our spiritual lives instead.
~Mark Vroegop – Dark Clouds Deep Mercy
Because my bitter spirit wouldn’t stop with me. It would spread like kudzu on an Alabama roadside.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/04/14/bitterness-is-a-terrible-legacy/
I don’t want to remember my son.
I want to make memories with him.
I want him to watch me grow old, to watch him get married and have children and to hear his voice mingled with his siblings at my table.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/04/02/i-dont-want-to-remember-my-son/
Not every soul lives to be “full of years”.
Some are snatched away when life has barely begun while others live a bit but not long enough. Even those whose lives span decades seem gone too soon for those left behind.
Dominic died just six weeks short of his twenty-fourth birthday.
My mother lived four days past her eighty-first.
We didn’t expect either of them to leave us when they did. Yet, here we are.
A day dawned that did not include them and there will be a sunrise that does not include me.
There is a limit to my opportunity to leave a legacy of love, of influence and of purpose to those who come behind. I want it to be one that lasts, that matters and that has eternal impact.
That’s why it matters how I spend my days.
Because days make up weeks which make up months, years and decades and then it’s over.
That doesn’t make me sad-because what comes next is more wonderful than what I have here-no matter how wonderful I think it is.
But it makes me thoughtful.
Paul reminds the Ephesians:
“Look carefully then how you walk!
“Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise (sensible, intelligent people), Making the very most of the time [buying up each opportunity], because the days are evil. Therefore do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is.”
~Ephesians 5:15-17 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)
While the days are often long, the years are short.
I don’t get a “do over” but I can do better.
God has prepared good works for me to do. My responsibility is to look for them and to do them.
I LOVE these verses in Ephesians:
Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
Ephesians 2:7-10 MSG
Do you hear what Paul is saying?
God saved us from sin and death. But that’s not all!
He saved us TO a life of loving service. And He’s already set the opportunities in place for us to simply take advantage of as we walk on in our lives!
I don’t have to go out of my way to find them. I simply have to offer up myself as a living sacrifice and trade my will for His.
God never wastes anything.
Not even suffering.
I’ve served in some capacity within my local Body for my entire adult life. But when Dominic died, I found I was so broken I couldn’t do it anymore. I had to step back, nurse my shattered heart and try to heal.
But about a year and a half after he left for Heaven, I felt God nudging me to try again.
So I did.
I started sharing my struggle, my faith and my experience in daily blog posts.
What began as kind of grudging obedience to God’s prompting has become a lifeline for me and for other bereaved parents.
It takes time. It takes effort. It takes commitment.
And there are days when I don’t want to do it.
But I’m convinced it’s one of the works God prepared beforehand that I should do.
There will be a day when my work will cease and the book will be closed on my earthly life.
Until then, I will strive to remember what Jesus told His disciples: “While it is daytime, we must do the works of the One who sent Me. But when the sun sets and night falls, this work is impossible.” (John 9:4 VOICE)
What has God equipped and called YOU to do?
What experiences in your life, gifts and talents, opportunities is God weaving together so You can do the good works He’s placing in your path?
Someone needs you to share YOUR story.
Someone needs you to help them connect THEIR story to God’s story.
Look around, they’re right in front of you. ❤
This post is the second in a series I began writing for a presentation I gave last Saturday entitled “Don’t Grow Weary In Doing Well: Making Kingdom Work a Priority”.
If you want to read the first post, you can find it here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2020/02/07/today-is-a-gift/
❤
I can’t tell you how many people try to tell me what Dominic’s “legacy” is. They extol his positive virtues and comment on how many lives he touched in his short 23 years.
They want me to be consoled with the intangible, relational, immeasurable impact of his life on the lives of others.
Yet they continue to live as if their OWN legacy will be determined by the amount of stuff they acquire or the size of their retirement accounts or the money they leave behind for others to spend.
It can’t be both.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/12/22/whats-your-legacy/
As happens often, multiple conversations, experiences and random social media posts rattle around in my brain and then sort themselves out into a brand new thought.
I realized (maybe for the first time with genuine feeling!) that I want people to know how my son lived and not only how or even that he died.
It was probably almost three years before I could mention Dominic’s name without also adding, “he was killed in a motorcycle accident” to anyone who didn’t already know that.
It wasn’t because I wanted sympathy or special consideration but because I honestly could not think about Dominic without placing every thought in the context of his death. I was so aware of his absence that it pushed everything else about him into the background.
I was also horribly jealous of what I had lost.
I needed to express how desperately I longed to have him back so tended to share details about his personality, accomplishments and pet peeves from my own perspective.
I was mainly looking at him through my eyes instead of seeing him as a whole person distinct from myself.
I wanted to curate his image in the eyes of others.
But Dominic had been his own man for a long time when he left this earth for Heaven. He made his own choices, had friends I never knew, read things and saw places beyond my experience.
When I insist on introducing him first as Dominic the missing member of the family instead of Dominic the man he had become, I make him smaller than he was (than he is!).
I don’t want to do that.
Even though I rarely insist on mentioning his death anymore in casual conversation unless asked directly, I realize that I want to do more than just NOT mention his death.
I want to comment on his life.
I want to tell folks that Dominic was one of the most talented drummers I’ve ever heard. I want them to know about his quirky sense of humor, his insistence on super soft clothing and irritation with people who took two parking spaces in crowded lots. I want to share how even though you’d swear he was never afraid, he often felt like maybe he wouldn’t measure up somehow.
I want you to know that he was adventurous, athletic, addicted to coffee and adrenaline and a fierce lover of justice and his family.
Yes, Dominic died.
But he lived, too.
And that’s really what I want people to know. ❤
If you are a fellow bereaved parent, please share something about what makes your child(ren) unique. What do you want others to know about him or her?
Oh, how easy it would be to become bitter!
If I’m honest, part of me just wants to tell the world to “Get lost!”.
But the wiser part of me knows that’s neither a helpful nor healthy response to even this most awful burden of child loss.
Lament is how we bring our sorrow to God. Without lament, we won’t know how to process pain. Silence, bitterness, and even anger can dominate our spiritual lives instead.
~Mark Vroegop – Dark Clouds Deep Mercy
Because my bitter spirit wouldn’t stop with me. It would spread like kudzu on an Alabama roadside.
The writer of Hebrews warns against this very thing:
Be careful that none of you fails to respond to the grace which God gives, for if he does there can very easily spring up in him a bitter spirit which is not only bad in itself but can also poison the lives of many others.
Hebrews 12:15 PHILLIPS
There is sufficient grace for even this.
But I can refuse it.
It’s a choice every single day.
Do I embrace the grace God freely offers or do I turn my back and embrace bitterness? Do I lean in to every promise of God in Christ or do I listen to the enemy of my soul who whispers, “Did God REALLY say….?”
Bitterness never ends with one person. It spreads. It grows.
It ruins lives and relationships and generations.
We all know families where it has taken root. We all know old folks whose faces are frozen in frowns and who rarely speak except to pass along their spiteful comments.
I may not get many things right. I’m pretty sure I get quite a few things wrong.
But I don’t want to mess this one up.
Bitterness is a terrible legacy.
I refuse to pass it on.
thelifeididntchoose 