John 10:10
…I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
Sarah doesn’t have the glow after her diagnoses, 2 operations and 3 weeks of radiation treatment every day, 5 days a week. While her prognosis is great and she will surely live to or beyond life expectancy Sarah has been dealt a shaking blow. With all her good health for all these years that foundation is shaken when you really need to consider your mortality. There are small signs, but important signs letting me into how having cancer has changed the way you think. I remember my diagnoses and the collateral damage it caused. Recently Sarah came home from picking Sarah Helena up from school and Sarah told me she saw this attractive young woman in a fancy little sports car and she said she thought that lady’s life could be changed by one mammogram or visit to her doctor’s office.
A few days ago Sarah told me she filed some important papers and told me where they were located. That wasn’t natural and I asked her why she told me about where they were and she said in case something happened to her? I think we need some orphans to save so we can put that glow back in Sarah’s face.
A Journey Of Spiritual Renewal
What Legacy Will You Create?
In life you can choose to be a mentor or an observer, but you can’t be a mentor without choosing to make the journey first. When we have been in a foreign country the citizens always want to have their picture taken with us. It really makes us feel special. How do you think the homeless person you bring to church would feel if you wanted to have your picture taken with them? How do you think they would feel if you gave them a copy of that picture? I’m also thinking a lonely elderly person or a single Mom trying to raise a couple of kids by herself would like a picture of you and them at the park, in their home. Don’t you think your children would be interested in your new friends if you had a picture of you with them on your end table? We’ve just got to see what everybody sees and think something new if we want to please God. Don’t you think your children would be better off for your new friendship if on your deathbed you asked your children to take your place after you pass? Isn’t that really a legacy worth passing on?
I made friends with a young Bosnian worker at Vanderbilt University Hospital when I was working there. He said something that has stuck with me all these years. He said Americans are funny. They make friends with you, ask you for your telephone number and then never call you. I feel as close to those 7 members of my family group at Gilda's Club as I do my own family, because we share each other's grief, pain and happiness in common. They have become another one of my Circle of Friends. Cancer is a common denominator in life, bringing strangers together and making friends out of them as is giving justice to God's children and helping the widows and the fatherless is a common denominator.
Psalm 90 1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.
2 Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. 3 You turn people back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
4 A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.
5 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death— they are like the new grass of the morning:
6 In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it is dry and withered.
Have you seriously considered your mortality, springing up new every morning only to be dry, withered and tired when you go to bed. Do you think you can change your routine and your life’s outcome? And what about the morning you don’t wake up and you return to dust, without establishing that deeper relationship with God? What about the morning you wake up and your spouse does not? You call the funeral home because you’ve already arranged for your burial. They come and confirm the person you’ve loved all these years is gone. The police show up. The funeral home people have trouble getting their body out of your home because of all the treasures you two had accumulated over the years. Isn’t your treasures really just worthless stuff without your loved one? You feel numb by the time your children arrive, somebody cooks breakfast, but you don’t feel like eating. Then your most serious child says, “there’s a lot of planning to do before the funeral.” You sit there in a daze.
That dying without establishing a deeper relationship with God is just a little too hard to think about right now, isn’t it? Let us concentrate on the living side of death, the sharing side of death. On the living side of death you still have a chance to change your destiny.
I’ve written this book for baby Boomers because I think they have the best chance to accomplish God’s will in the world and they still have time to influence their children. Baby Boomers have the time and wisdom to accomplish this work. But I also think it is just as important for young people to start a life of doing God’s will, earlier than retirement. Later I’m going to talk about how I wished I had known about leaving a legacy when Sarah and I were starting out as a couple. I truthfully believe I would have chosen different career choices. I appreciate my mentors who helped me with my careers, but I wished they had helped me with my spiritual life. I was reading Thomas Merton when I was in my early twenties. I admired him, but I didn’t know how to translate his spirituality into my life. Sarah bought me a very nice leather brief case for my first job. I carried the lunch she prepared for me in a brown paper bag and my Bible in that brief case. I soon took on more responsibilities and my brief case started filling up with papers and reports. I started running out of space, so my Bible went first and then my sack lunch.
We need to get in our children’s faces and teach them what leaving a legacy looks like and how important it is to having a pleasing life. If you actively pursue leaving your own legacy you’ll have plenty of pictures and emails to put into albums to show your children. You’ll have plenty of painful stories to share with them, because reaching out is not always successful, Like holding a baby orphan like Fayth, who you know is going to die and never be adopted by a loving family. The unpleasant facts of life makes helping the ones who are going to live get adopted all the sweeter. You’ll also have plenty of glorious and happy pictures and stories to share. Sometimes adults you try to help crash and burn, but don’t stop trying because they fail, because the next person might be the treasure you’re looking for and the person who's name God has written on your heart. God’s life, He wants us to live, is not about being a success, but it is about taking the journey with Him.
Include your children in your legacy building by asking them to help you, even if your children live out of town. When they come to visit you invite them to tag along and help you do whatever good works you have chosen to do. Introduce your children to the people you are helping. After your Grand Children open their presents, take them to the Homeless Shelter on Christmas morning, where you volunteer and let them work along side you and introduce them to the friends you have made among the homeless. Be sure to take your Grand Children along so they can see Jesus and the Comforter work in you and those you help. Take them on a trip to visit a foreign country to see the sights, and then visit hospitals, orphanages and foster homes to find ways to help children.
If you take time to explain that creating a relationship is like giving birth and there could be pain, your children will more than likely be willing to make friendships of their own, because they know what to expect and they know you did it. I’m reminded how hard and painful it was for me to find the right girl to spend my life with. I didn’t know I was searching for Sarah, but I sure had a lot of broken hearts, kissed a lot of girls and held a lot of sweaty hands before I found Sarah and it was all worth the trouble. What a reward. We are one in spirit in God and she’s the glorious gift God wanted me to have. It hasn't been always easy, but we have each other and God’s wisdom. The results are always worth the pain. I compare befriending one of God’s needy children, an orphan, with finding a mate to spend the rest of your life with, because I think they are both equally important to be a part of our lives.
These are some good works that need help, still waiting out there for you to own.
The Homeless
The lonely elderly
Neglected children
The dieing
The prisoners
The hungry
The mentally challenged
The addicted
The lost
The oppressed
Our Beginning
To Be Continued
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