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?