L is for Legacy by Carol Harrison

 

Experiencing a season of grief during this festive time, I’ve thought a lot of the legacy my husband left, how people remember him and as I sit at my desk to write, wonder how people will remember me. 

Leaving a legacy goes far beyond leaving behind wealth or family heirlooms that can be lost, broken, or stolen. While I enjoy the family pieces I have inherited, I remember the people who I received them from. I think of the long-lasting impact they had on my life through their words and actions.

Reflecting back over forty-nine years of marriage, I see the ups and downs, the difficult times where we chose to stand together and trust God for the outcome. I remember my husband’s love along with his stubbornness. But the impact of his loving me unconditionally for who I am and encouraging me to try things like writing when I had no confidence in my ability or gifting to do so is a legacy of love he left for me.

But what in my life impacts people and resonates with them? Does my writing? Do my words or actions? I pray they do. For the sum of my actions, words, writing, and accomplishments that resonate with people are the legacy I will leave behind. I long for it to be positive and glorify God.

I believe that having an impact that is positive and gives God the glory is how we can be the light to the world around us. Letting Christ shine through us leaves an affirming, positive legacy rather than a destructive one.

I am blessed to have received faith-filled, positive spiritual, emotional and social legacies from parents and grandparents as well as my husband. So even though this season brings more tears, the memories remain in this legacy of love.

My grandfather was a quiet man of faith. He didn’t share many words about what he believed but his everyday actions showed that he followed Jesus. He was slow to anger, quick to forgive, full of compassion. He wasn’t perfect for he was merely a man living through the good and bad times. Yet the impact of watching him live out his Christ-centered beliefs still impacts me today. He tried, with God’s help to live out Ephesians 5: 1 “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Our social, emotional and spiritual impact leave a legacy far beyond monetary value and can be shared with many throughout our life and still make an impact after we have passed from this life to glory. How will we be remembered? What legacy will we leave? Does our writing, words, and actions reflect that in our everyday lives right now? 

 

Carol Harrison is a writer and speaker who is passionate about mentoring people of all ages and abilities to help them find their voice and reach their full potential while finding glimmers of hope and glimpses of joy.

H is for Hospital by Lorilee Guenter

The past two weeks, I have spent many hours at the hospital as God writes the final pages of my dad's life. Through the journey there have been other "h" words come to mind. Words lived in the moments we have. Today I offer a reflection on a life well lived and the final pages of a life story.

As people of faith, these days do not only mark an end but a new beginning. We live each day in the hope that we have been given. Soon dad's faith will become sight.  He lived with the hope of healing, perfect healing, as he embraced life both now and the one to come. He shared that hope even in the moments of deep pain. 

He leaves a legacy of love. Day by day Dad showed us what love looked like. Staff and volunteers have commented on the love they have witnessed as we wait for the last line of the earthly story to be written. We know the first line of the sequel. I am grateful for the legacy of love that I am part of and recognize the unspoken challenge to continue that legacy.

Throughout the years, Dad lived a life of consistency. He offered help and encouragement to those around him. He knew you didn't need to write a novel for your words to have impact. He encouraged us to use our words to write for ourselves and others. He modelled kind and encouraging words to those he interacted with including cashiers and strangers put in his path. Now as we share stories with friends, family and staff and volunteers here who pause to listen, we are on the receiving end of encouragement, help and offers of help. 

As I reflect on the example and teaching of my dad, it is my hope that we as writers offer ourselves as a pen in God's hand as he writes our story and the stories of those around us.

My Mother's Gift - Tandy Balson

My mother was very excited as she presented me with a copy of Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter. She told me that this was one of her favorite books when she was a girl.

Soon I was lost in the story of Elnora, an impoverished girl living near the Limberlost Swamp. Her life moved from the pages of a book into my imagination, where I pictured the scenes and her struggles.

I had read Trixie Beldon and Nancy Drew mysteries, but they were just entertaining stories.  Elnora’s life became very real to me.  It was the first time I was ever sad when a book ended.  I didn’t want to leave her and imagined how her life would have carried on.

Thus began a life-long love of reading.  By gifting me with literature that was important to her, my mother ignited my passion for a well written story.  

Over the years I have spent countless hours immersed in good books. The world around me fades away as I enter into the stories.  To this day, I feel one of the best ways to spend a day is curled up with a book.

This love of reading has been passed along to my daughter and my grandchildren.  I wonder if my mother realized the legacy she was handing down when she gave me that book.

I inherited her collection of books when she passed away.  In it are many classics, some dating back more than 100 years.  I treasure these volumes and when I look at them I send up a prayer of thanks for the mother who loved me enough to share her favourite book with me.

WHY WRITE? by Bryan Norford

It's Always Different

I have been fascinated while reading our September blogs by the variety of paths that inspire writing. Those stories relate surprising and intricate ways God has brought many InScribers to write for Him, and I confess provoke a little envy that my journey is just plain ordinary.

But the form of our call is does not determine its importance. God has a storehouse of methods to gain our attention and call His people to action, more than we can imagine. Furthermore, His timing does not always coincide with ours.

I didn’t venture into serious writing until my late sixties. But I was always intrigued how versatile the English language is, particularly in determining the tone of our message, whether to friends, in ministry, or for business documents.

During those earlier years, like many people, I always had a vague desire to “write my story some day.” But as I grew towards retirement and an increasing assurance of my faith, I became incensed with so much arrogant nonsense our declining culture calls truth.

 With the Great Grandkids

Coupled with that, our growing family of grandchildren and great grandchildren became the focus of our concern and prayers. We didn’t want our dear family caught up in falling and failing values that increasingly bring misery.

So began a journey to leave a legacy of basic truths of our faith, and their relevance to a joyful life of meaning: a life not dependent on earthly health or wealth, but energized by a settled status with God and his eternal reality.

The words of Paul continue to be my motivation, “We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal,” 2 Corinthians 4:18. Little in this life makes sense without this starting point.

Thus, among other areas of ministry Ann and I feel called to in our latter years of life, writing has become a major focus—as long as we remain coherent! A written legacy of faith will reach further into coming generations than spoken words that dissolve in the wind.

Sixty Years Married

THE PLEASURE IS ALL MINE by Bryan Norford

What does it feel like to experience God’s pleasure? There are times, as Ramona suggests, when writing flows easily. Perhaps that is feeling His pleasure. But when writing is hard, is that because He is displeased? More likely, difficult writing is probably fielding the displeasure of the evil one. Meaningful dialog comes from the pain of writing as well as its pleasure.

To be honest, I am low on the emotional scale, so feelings rarely come into the categories that drive my writing. But if passion is included in the feelings cluster, perhaps that provides Him pleasure as it drives my need to write. For me, the passion I feel is born of the correspondence of my experience with the truth: the “yes, that’s so right” moment.

Our hearts can be deceitfully wicked, and our feelings often unreliable. The Mormon “burning bosom” that’s supposed to confirm truth can be misleading. Never-the-less, as we listen to Him we mimic the experience of the two on the road to Emmaus: "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"

It’s that experience that excites me as I read Scripture. Recently, I read—it seemed for the first time—Isaiah 59:21: "As for me, this is my covenant with them," says the Lord. "My Spirit, who is on you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth, or from the mouths of your children, or from the mouths of their descendants from this time on and forever," says the Lord.

In context, “them” are those of Israel who have repented of their sin. That includes us Gentiles, for all who belong to Christ are Abraham’s seed, Galatians 3:29. For one whose primary burden is the legacy I leave for my ever extending family, this doubles my desire and drive to write the truth.

The whole of life—living daily with Him—should evoke the pleasure of His company. But especially writing that expresses or confirms the way Scripture predicts both personal and public life drives my passion. This desire to honour Him, I must believe, brings Him pleasure. My response, as the saying goes: “The pleasure is all mine.”