Life, Legacy and Love

I came home early today from building fences because Jenny got a call that her grandfather on her mom's side was in the hospital from a heart attack. She got Emma who was home from school on the holiday and Lincoln and left for Lebanon about an hour away from Salem. She could only visit for a few minutes in the ICU and then she had to bring the kids back. I told her to pick me up on the way home so I could take the kids and she could go back to be with her family. This will  probably be the last time she sees him because he did not want to be revived if the heart attack happened again. He is 91 and him and his wife live together in a community home since his leg was amputated a few years ago. Grandpa will be missed if his time has come, but he has left a legacy that is worth more than many lost treasures.

On February 19, 2010 just two years ago, my grandmother passed away. Before hers I had only been to one or two funerals in the last ten years. One person I did not know and one young man died in a tragic shipwreck. Since my grandma passed away I began to realize that I would be going to a few more funerals than I wanted to in the coming years including my 7 year old nephew who journeyed with cystic fibrosis. My wife's grandparents on her moms side are 90 and her grandma on her dads side is 90. My grandpa on my moms side is 82 but in good health and my only other grandpa is 90 and survived a heart attack last year. Just this last week I knew of 3 kids who were lost to cancer and counless more since I became aware last July.

It seems this guy is trying to befriend me like a stalker on facebook



I know death is a part of life, but it is not the only part. There is a definite beginning, middle and end.
In the beginning you are NOT born, you are conceived and you have life. Your heart beats within the first few weeks and you deserve a chance to breath. Thank you everyone who has ever told your doctors that you Will have this baby even if they only live a few moments. You have saved a life and you will be rewarded. Now that you have been born you go through childhood eating, drinking and playing. Mom, can you get me a drink?! (waaaaay after bedtime) Dad I'm hungry! (even thought I just left the dinner table, food untouched) I want to play outside (even though its raining and cold) Then there are the teenage years, lets not touch that one for now since I don't have any teens yet and I'm not looking forward to gas money being borrowed at $3 More a gallon than in my teenage years. Later there is going to college, getting a job and stress. Marriage and little ones follow with great joy and hopes that they would do everything you never got to do, or get to do, like take a long nap. After 18 years or so you look toward retirement and spending a good 20 years doing something for yourself. Then when you turn 75 you realize that the end is coming very quickly and you don't want to be forgotten, so you spend as much time (and money) as you can on the grandkids. That's life and it seems as short as this paragraph sometimes, but there is something you can do before it comes to a close.

You can leave a Legacy that no one, not even death can touch. In fact, death must yeild to the legacy that you leave behind. No matter how old, or young you are, you are going to leave something behind that the world would miss out on had you never been born. Statistically you will influence at least 10,000 people directly in your life time but you may never know the true impact. Your life counts for something, even today IF you choose to live with purpose. Don't give up now, and don't worry about death because as my favorite Author of Life has written:

1 Corinthians 15:50-58
I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."
"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.