Hope

A Life Well-Lived

It was timing that couldn’t have been arranged by the best event planner. After a weekend of baby dedications at church, the memorial service of my great-grandmother was held. She was 93 and until the end was quick-witted, kind-hearted and full of love. To celebrate the start of life, and the end of life on subsequent days was bound to create some lessons. And in God’s providence it did.

My great-grandmother, while great to me, was probably not great in the eyes of the world. She lived a “small” life, by that I mean her impact was limited to a relatively small circle of family and friends. Her passing will not be noted in the news or on the pages of People magazine. She did the task that was set before her, serving her family, raising six kids, and loving the following generations, but outside of these rather “routine” duties, she never achieved great things. Biographies will probably never be written about her, and yet for those of us whom she touched, our lives will be better for it.

My great-grandmother was an unconventional product of her time, because unlike many of her counterparts she worked outside of the home. My great-grandfather had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and so my great-grandmother helped provide for the family through being a nurse. When I think about the difficulties my generation faces with “work/life balance” I wonder how my great-grandmother did it without the use of the Internet, ATM cards, or laundry services. She was amazing woman for all that she accomplished on this Earth even if monuments will never be built to acknowledge it.

And while my great-grandmother was great for these, and many other reasons, the one that stands out to me the most is the legacy she left. She had six kids, and from them many more grandkids, great-grandkids, and one great-great grandkid. The significant thing is that in the generations she left behind there are professors of faith and repentance in Christ. My great-grandmother may not have been the most evangelical person in the world, but you can’t help believe that she must have been a person of prayer, for each generation that follows is a part of the heritage of faith that she left. Her accomplishments may not prompt the creation of monuments of brick and stone, but the monuments of generations of believers will stand great in the kingdom of heaven. Each one of our houses that the Lord is preparing for us, is a testament to the faith that Daisy Irene Newell shared with her children, and that they shared with the generations after. And these monuments will last a lot longer than Mount Rushmore.

Baby dedications celebrate the beginning of life and the hope and prayers of parents that their children will, as DL Moody wished, “be great in the kingdom of heaven.” Celebrating the end of my great grandmother’s life demonstrated what this looked like on the other end for she sought not only to do great things on this Earth, but strove to ensure that her legacy wouldn’t diminish once life here ended. And that’s a life truly well-lived.

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Growth Hope Relationships

Lunching with the Enemy

The holidays are a time where spend a great deal of our waking hours with those we love. A lot of these occasions seem to involve eating and maybe rightly so, as it seems that eating together is often associated with a level of intimacy not found between mere associates. Maybe this is why business executives and Hollywood agents are quick to “do lunch”; it’s a tangible sign of inclusiveness.

Inclusiveness, however, doesn’t happen just around the dining room table of our homes. For those of us who are Christians, our Heavenly Father has promised that not only are we part of our own families, we are part of His (Titus 3:7; Ephesians 1:5). Therefore, we get to eat at His banquet table, and share in fellowship with Him (Luke 14:15). This is a common understanding of grace; those of us who were wrong with God get to be made right with Him. However, as in much of Christianity, that which has become common, has perhaps lost its impact. While all the above is true, what is often forgotten is the degree to which we are anathema to God except for Christ’s sacrifice. Getting the privilege to eat at Christ’s table is comparable to the outrage that would occur if President Bush had Osama Bin Laden over for Thanksgiving, except comparably our crimes against a holy God are far worse. (This is not to say that the earthly consequences of our behavior are the same, but the contrast between our sins and God’s holiness is much more pronounced than the same comparison made between sinners.) The shock of such a meal would resound throughout the CNN-world, because we would recognize that a privilege was being given to a man who not only had not earned it, but had earned the exact opposite response. The President would be granting an act of inclusion to somebody whose behavior calls for him to be ostracized. Osama would be accompanying the same seat that the President’s children had sat in, served from the same dishes, and allowed the same access. The fact that we find this absurd, shows us the scandal of God’s grace. For those of us who were enemies of God are now His children (Col. 1:20-21); He has allowed them unprecedented access (Rom. 5:1-3), and shows them favor they can never earn (Eph. 2:8-9). We have become so used to calling ourselves “children of God”, that we forget the affront our adoptions paper must cause in heaven. The enemies have been made kids.

Many of us will gather this holiday season and get together with friends and families out of obligation. Let us not forget that God has no obligation to lunch with us, and yet through faith and repentance, He gives us the privilege anyway.

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