It's been a hard week - but a good week. You may have seen in my last post that my Grandma (my dad's mom) passed away last week -not completely unexpected but not really expected either if that makes any sense. She had been sick a number of times in the last few years and had congestive heart failure, kidney failure etc....but at the end of May she had two stents put in and seemed to be doing really well. Over the last several days we've spent LOTS of time with family, with my cousins who we only see a couple times a year and we've shared a lot of memories. One thing has really struck me - over and over again as we all talked, my grandma's legacy was one of hurt and anger and bitterness. I don't mean to bash on my Grandma at all - she was a WONDERFUL grandma and I have lots and lots of great memories, but when you look at the "big picture" of her life, you see a life marked by loss, by hurt and by bitterness. My grandfather was an alcoholic and my grandparents divorced when my dad was young, my grandmother lost a daughter to a car accident when she was 16 years old, and when my great grandparents passed away my grandma and her sister had a massive falling out and hadn't spoken in nearly 20 years. Some would look at my grandma's life and think that she had every reason to feel jaded, to be mad or hurt...and maybe she did.
As we all sat and talked though, I couldn't help but think, this isn't the kind of legacy I want to leave. This isn't how I want my family to remember me. I want my life to be marked by my faith in the God who saved me, by a love for my family, by a passion for everything that I do. I want people to look back on my life and see a life well lived. If I face the kind of trials that my Grandma dealt with, I want people to remember that I clung to Jesus and I overcame the struggles, that I forgave instead of harboring bitterness, that I loved when others seemed unlovable or undeserving.
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