No U-Haul behind a hearse

The old saying goes, 'There's no U-Haul behind a hearse.' True enough - we don't take anything with us when we die...

Recently I attended a funeral for my friend's mom. There WAS something behind her hearse. A line - a LONG line - of cars full of people! It stretched for over a mile as we drove from the church to the cemetery. It struck me that this was a picture of her legacy, that she had affected so many lives to the good that they would honor her memory by spending a perfectly gorgeous fall afternoon in a cemetery!

I did not know this woman well, though I had met her. She was someone's "Mom", someone else's "Gran". But her life of praying for, nurturing and investing in others' lives paid a bonus dividend in the character and the love of the women she influenced. Her legacy is in people. And people last forever. Things don't.

Her funeral was full of laughter and tears, mingling on the faces in the church. Laughter when her grandson's cell phone went off in the middle of his testimony! Tears when we saw her family praising God in the midst of grief, relief and somehow, joy. A recent study in Ecclesiastes brought this memory back to me...

Eccl. 3:14
I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere Him.

If I could pick a legacy to leave behind, that would be it...

from our home to yours -
Deb