A couple weeks ago Philly and I were listening to Andy Stanley teach a message about the legacy you wanted to leave behind. He shared how he had done this exercise in a book he was reading where he thought about five people he most cared about and then wrote what he hoped they would say at his funeral. Then he was to read over those eulogy’s and come up with the common theme in each one of them. That running thread would in essence be how he most wanted to be remembered.

Of course when we got home and we were having our Sunday “dinner” as I like to call it only on Sunday’s, which drives our kids crazy, we began to talk about how we wanted to be remembered. Everyone went around the table and gave their words, we had things like “great dancer”, “sweet”, “good looking” “I don’t know.” 

The theme for me was accentuated for me this week as I went to two different funerals. As both men were eulogized themes of their lives came up. “Great husband”, “student of the word”, “wonderful father”, “an engineering mind”, “a lover of the water”. At one point I leaned over to my husband and said, “I’m going to start planning my funeral.”

He looked at me and said, “Of course you are.”

To which I could only laugh because we have both discovered since we got married that I am an intense planner. Something that was always there but has been accentuated on an extreme level since my life changed almost a year ago.

But when it came around to me that day at the dinner table and I had to tell how I wanted to be remembered only one word came to my mind. Faithful.
 That one word pretty much sums it up for me. If I can be remembered as faithful…faithful to my God, to my family, to my friends, to the gifts and talents and calling on my life, then I can leave here feeling as if I did my job well.

Now, I have no intention of writing my own eulogies this week, but I am challenged in this exercise to be committed to living out this word “faithful.” Faithful to my commitments. Faithful to spend time with my Father. Faithful to study and prepare for this weekend so I can offer a word of impact and hope to the ladies I will encounter at our event this Saturday. Faithful to be present with my beautiful “bonus” children. Just faithful in my tasks this week.

We have no ability to know what tomorrow will hold. But what we do possess the power to do is in our today…live out what we want our legacy to be. By the way, would you make sure they sing “Great is thy Faithfulness” at my funeral. It was played when I walked down the aisle at my wedding. Wouldn’t mind it being played down the aisle as they take me out of the church. (Okay- so maybe that sounds so morbid…Granted in all of this musing please know my prayer is to go to heaven all at one time with my entire family- preferably in the rapture – if that’s part of God’s plan.) But in all of my unfaithful moments…he has been, well, indescribably faithful.

Ponder the thought this week if you will. And when you’re finished…let us know what word you would hope would describe you at the end of your life…