Family Legacy

Most of the time, we think of ourselves and our small part of the world, i.e. our lives are self-centric. This makes sense because whose thoughts do we really know but our own? We can know other people, but we will never know anyone as intimately as ourselves because we will never be another person. Thus, we walk through life viewing others through how they affect our own self-centric world. (As a side note, this means that we often mistakenly think that people are thinking about us all the time because we think about ourselves all the time. Actually, once you grasp this concept, you learn that people don't spend even an eighth of their time thinking about you, so we needn't sit around worrying what people are thinking about us (and really, that's us thinking about people thinking about us so really we're still thinking about ourselves).

For the above reason, we must force ourselves to take time out to think beyond our own small world and days of remembrance do this for us. This is Memorial Day, a day we remember others who have sacrificed on our behalf and maybe not even on our behalf, but for others worlds away. No, I never knew my grandfather. But he participated in the Pacific Theater of World War II (as did my husband's grandfather). My grandfather did not die in the War, but later when my dad was seventeen, so I never got to know him. This means he didn't have a direct affect on my life--but he did leave a legacy. If I step outside my self-centric bubble and look back, I can understand that my dad, whom I am so blessed to have influenced my life, was influenced by my grandfather. Without my grandfather, my honorable father wouldn't be the father I know.

I am blessed that both lines of my family are full of strong Christians who had to choose to follow Christ often in hard times. My faith rests on a legacy of people who have come before me and even though I didn't know them, I honor them now for living lives dedicated to Christ.

Alexis will inherit this legacy. I am glad I can take this time to stop, step outside myself, and remember that to be who I am I needed other people. I didn't make myself on my own--God used people to make me.