What Will Your Legacy Be?

If you are familiar with Facebook you know what status updates are.  Most of the time people post updates about what they are doing, what they have done or what they hope to do. Occasionally someone will post something unusual. Tonight one of my friends had this as their status, “Have you considered what the legacy of your life with be?”

The man who asked this question is a minister (and a very good one, I might add). It just so happens that I have thought about my legacy, but I will never know the answer to that question because I won’t be around to see what happens after I am gone.

I suspect that most of us would like to think that our legacy will be a good one, that we will be remembered for a long, long time and hopefully in a positive manner. We hope, but again, we don’t know.

Here’s what I do know. My mother has been dead for twenty years. She lived in a small town, was married to my father for thirty some years, had two children and eventually went back to school to become a teacher. She taught school for sixteen years. She was a member of a small, rural church and a registered voter who voted in most elections. She was an excellent cook and a marathon shopper.  She was only 51 years old when she died.

Most people would look at her life and think that there was nothing exceptional about her. They would have no idea of  the legacy she left.

Let me see if I can explain.

A few months ago I was at our local high school and a lady stopped me and asked me to sit down. She said she had something she needed to tell me.

I sat down across from her and this is what she said…

“Karen (her daughter)  told me something the other day that I want to share with you,” she said. “Her father and I recently divorced and it’s been really hard on her. Rarely does she tell me anything about things that happen at school so when she came home excited about something the other day, I sat down and gave her my full attention.”

I nodded and listened, not sure where the conversation was going.

“Karen asked me if I had ever felt a connection with a special teacher, really special? She asked me if I knew what it was like to feel like a teacher really understood you, believed in you and knew how you felt?”

Karen’s mom smiled at me and tears were in her eyes.

“I told Karen I knew exactly what she meant. You see when I was younger than Karen my parents divorced. I had no self esteem and I didn’t believe in myself.  I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror, that’s how bad it was. But I had a teacher who wouldn’t give up on me. Every day she told me she believed in me and she kept encouraging me to try harder, to smile more, to make friends and she told me every day that she loved me. That teacher was your mom.”

A  few weeks after that conversation I was in the grocery store when I noticed someone staring at me.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Aren’t you Shirley Bell’s daughter?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Your mom was the best, kindest teacher I ever had. I just wanted you to know that.”

She left before I could even ask her name.

Every year since mom died without exception someone will stop me, write me, or email me to tell me how my mother touched their life.

So back to my friend’s question about creating a legacy….I think it’s good to think about what our legacy will be, but only God knows where the seeds He plants in our hearts will end up when He scatters them with the winds of His love.

Giving thanks today for God’s love and His legacy to us, even though we may never know what our legacy is—if we are His children, it will be good!