What Is Your Legacy and How Will You Share It?
Have you ever given any thought to your legacy? Has it occurred to you that you are a legacy, and that you have a legacy? I believe God has created a legacy of good news in each of us and that we are made to share it. Let’s begin by considering the word legacy.
What is a legacy?
You can probably tell that the word legacy is related to the word legal, and indeed, the original meaning of the word had to do with legal direction for what we leave when we die. In this sense, a legacy has to do with legal direction for the financial and material goods we leave behind.
The word has taken on a broader meaning, though, as Oxford languages puts it, “the long-lasting impact of particular events, actions, etc. that took place in the past, or of a person’s life.” (Google, Oxford Languages).
Living our legacy as Christians
For Christians, our legacy points to the good news of God’s story of grace in our lives, and we are meant to live and share it for God’s glory:
“tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about his power and his mighty wonders” (Psalm 78:4).
We focus first on living a life that tells the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord. What I remember about my grandmother is how she faithfully taught Sunday School well into her eighties, how she took my brother and me to Vacation Bible School when we visited her in the summer, and how she cooked fabulous meals and made a home for us. We want to live a life that shows the grace of God to the “next generation,” whether our own children and grandchildren, or to anyone who needs to know the good news.
Numbering our days
Part of living this life includes a commitment to numbering our days:
“So teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12
We do so by facing the realities of aging, caregiving, and the end of life, intentionally, wisely, and hopefully. As Eugene Peterson said,
“We will learn to live well when we learn to live wisely. And we will learn to live wisely when we learn to realize that our days here on earth are numbered.” (Eugene Peterson, The Message: Conversations with Its Author).
For more thoughts on living our legacies by numbering our days, go here:
10 Benefits to Numbering Your Days
Preparing your legacy
I think of the legacy we prepare and share in two large categories: practical and spiritual.
Practical Legacy
Our practical legacy includes all of the information our loved ones will need if we are incapacitated or have died: the legal instructions such as will, advance directive, power of attorney, etc. as well as essential information like passwords, insurance, financial, etc. Our practical legacy also includes things we don’t leave behind because we have appropriately let go of things along the way.
My parents were divorced when I was young and had very different approaches to numbering their days and preparing a legacy. My father died without providing much in the way of a practical legacy although he knew he had terminal cancer. My mother, because she had seen the complications and additional grief caused by my father dying without this legacy, gathered all of the information I would need as her executor. Because she died unexpectedly, having this information in the midst of my shock and grief was a kind gift.
Spiritual Legacy
Our spiritual legacy is the non-material legacy we leave: our stories, beliefs, values, and wisdom. In addition to living authentically in the way we wish to be remembered, we gather and record our spiritual legacy, whether through writing or video or oral recording. There are a myriad of ways to record and share a spiritual legacy.
Sharing your legacy
I am passionate about helping you share your legacy. If you write stories in a little notebook but no one ever knows about them, they could be lost forever. I can help you gather your legacies into one place and to share them in ways that bless your loved ones. It can be difficult to have conversations with family members or friends about our legacies, both practical and spiritual, because people don’t want to think about our deaths. But when we number our days intentionally and wisely, we can share the hope of glory, our belief that our death is the beginning of our truest story, not the end.
Dear friends, let’s start today to live, prepare, and share our legacy intentionally.
