Let the Dead Things Go

This.  I fell in love with this quote.  It's time to pay attention.  Pay attention to the changing seasons around us.  Life is so full of seasons.  The obvious outdoors, but also of love, friends, circles.  Life, death and decay exist in all levels of our seasons.  And we must let each season have it's time.  When relationships are alive, let them live.  When relationships are dying, let them die because it is only after death that decay happens and allows new life to spring forth.  And that new life only makes us stronger and more empowered.  It grows and blossoms more richly and more beautifully than ever before.

A beautiful friend told me days ago it was time to move on from a dead situation.  To just live.  No what ifs.  No regrets.  And I think he was right.  Now, we can't ignore our circumstances and just hope for the best.  We have to face them, daily.  But if we face them with the knowledge of what season they are in, we will be able to see the loveliness of the changing of the seasons and be free to live, stronger and more empowered.

Reality slapped me in the face this week.  Not the typical get off your butt and get busy, you're running late kind of reality.  But the reality of something so negative that had filled my life for so long it eventually took over until I was like a dilapidated building ready to implode, which I did.

The irony is that the old reality that camel slapped me in the head is no longer my reality.  Because you see, I come from a long line of Hughes' with really big heads.  Literally.  And a camel slap to me is just another day.  An occupational hazard, you might say.  But I was forced to be strong and face this reality head on.  (No pun intended!)  And you know what?  I did.  I did not try to revive and bring that dead reality back to life.  And although I was nervous and shaking and scared, I let the strength of the new life growing in this season take over and burst through the decay that was trying to keep me suffocated under it all.  And I told it to go and not come back.  And when that old reality walked out of the bar where I was working, I slumped to the floor and released all of the suffocating death and decay still lingering.  And with the strong hand of a friend, I got up off the floor, wiped my eyes, and took a deep breath of the new life I am embracing, stronger and more empowered than ever before.  And I realized something.  The old, dying reality?  It will only continue to get weaker until it is completely decayed.  And the new life in me?  It will only continue to grow in a richer environment through that death and decay.  And it will be beautiful and strong and vibrant.

I am entering a beautiful new season in my life.  I love the circles and relationships and new life happening all around me.  I choose to let the dead things go and let new life spring up.  Pay attention to the seasons, my loves, especially this one.  Let the trees show us how lovely it is to let the dead things go.

Love Leaves Legacy

Have you thought about the legacy you're leaving?  What others will remember or see or think about when you're gone?  What your children and grandchildren will have that you left behind?

Dictionary.com defines legacy as:  something handed down or received from an ancestor or predecessor.

So many times in society we hear stories about children who inherit massive amounts of land or business or money, left as a legacy to them most times by their parents or grandparents.  Sometimes, as in my case, since I still haven't found my rich, dead uncle, what we perceive as legacies are more simple items, like antique tools or gadgets used by our grandparents that we hang on the wall or continue to put to their original purpose.  I don't see anything negative about either one of these types of inheritances we leave to our children, as long as they are taught the respect and responsibility that goes along with it and don't become just a spoiled, wanting-for-nothing brat.

But... yep, here I go again... are those things really the best legacy we can leave for our children?  Don't get me wrong; things left from generations ago are great.  My house is full of them and I love the memories they carry along with knowing my grandma or grandpa used to use that exact item, probably on a daily basis.  Those items help keep the past alive and keep me grounded.  But when it comes down to it, do others see the real legacy left behind in those things hanging on the walls of our homes?

Albert Einstein had another view:  "Never regard study as a duty but as an enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later works belong."

R. Alan Woods said about Einstein's quote in his book, The Journey is the Destination:  a book of Quotes with Commentaries, that Einstein was referring to his legacy he left behind for future generations to help benefit them in their own daily walk through this gift of life given us by God.

I am a firm believer in leaving things better than we found them, helping to pave the way for our future generations (no handouts, just guidance!), as what we leave behind will be what our children will have to work, clean up, enjoy or throw away.  A quote I've heard many times says, "We don't inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."  I've said before that we have a God-given responsibility of being caretakers of our earth.  Just another part of a legacy -- how we leave our part of the earth that we walked upon for our children.

But what about our moral legacy?  A legacy of love or faith or tradition?  When you're gone, what will folks remember most?  What stories will they tell?  What am I doing to ensure I'm leaving more than just things for my daughter?

Do you want to know what humbles me more than anything?  Then read on.  If you don't, then skip the rest of this paragraph.  What humbles me most and brings my heart to it's gut-wrenching knees while at the same time raising my hands in awe-struck wonder and praise is that I have been left the most amazing legacy that could be imagined.  By the grace of God, through faith, I have been left a legacy of love.  Christ's love.  He died for me!  What a legacy!  And the absolute best legacy in the world that I can leave my daughter is that same legacy of God's gracious love.  Love leaves a legacy.

What are you leaving behind?