Legacy

This is from a post for one of my classes. It seemed "bloggable" so here it is...

Nicole Nordeman wrote these words for her song, "Legacy":

I want to leave a legacy
How will they remember me?
Did I choose to love?
Did I point to You enough
to make a mark on things?
I want to leave an offering
A child of mercy and grace who
blessed your name unapologetically
And leave that kind of legacy

The first time I heard the song, I wept. The questions were right on with my life and my thoughts.

What four words best describe what you would hope to leave as your leadership legacy?
My four words would be: Passionate, Loving, Caring, Joyful

Passionate:
about people, about Jesus, about being a woman of God, wise and steeped in the Word

Loving:
seeing and understanding people through the eyes of Jesus, not by seeing them with the outer "shell" that they live in and show themselves; loving the messy, the emo, the nagging, the grumpy – because they are image bearers of Jesus Christ

Caring:
seeing what the person needs, or wants help with really; responding with intentionality and being "fully present".

Joyful:
life is worth living; life's moments are worth celebrating; laughter and "serious fun" make harder times move by with fewer bumps and bruises (though they will still exist); living with not happiness in mind, but a deep-rooted sense of "rightness" that God is "in" this event I am living through and relishing it!

Which ones are most in need of a new focus [in your life] to become a reality?
Probably the caring and joyful components. I have been in "overdrive" seeking to make some goals (educationally) and tend to just want to do MY THING with MY GOALS in mind. It's hard on everyone around me. It's hard on me. I don't want to live that way. I had to work through some really REALLY hard issues the last couple of weeks. None of them were life-threatening, world-erupting issues. Most of them issues were messy, grumpy people issues. (This made me a grumpy, messy person at home last week. Yuck.) I spent a lot of time yesterday in prayer and reflection over where I was NOT in line with God' agenda for me. It was hard.

God is gracious because He either changed circumstances so that my decisions were either "OK" or not a crisis because I made the "right" decision. But it was how I made them. It was not with an attitude of grace, but with one of judgment and just a smidge (or a double-portion) of self-righteousness. I thought of the lessons we gleaned in study group from "Amazing Grace" and the Gospels and had to confess to the Lord that I was not being a servant, but self-serving.

One of my friends once suggested that if we Christians looked more like the fruit of the Spirit instead of the seven dwarves, we would be more attractive to our world. (Point of fact, I am more often grumpy, sleepy, dopey and so on than I would like to admit.)

I still wrestle with esteem issues which I know are Satan's main attack. It has been difficult, but necessary, to continually let God's Spirit prick my heart when I react badly to situations (or people) which either assume I had the wrong motives, or who are out to press their point and attack. It's all I can do to not respond in kind or to be defensive. I realized as I was reflecting on our prayer retreat yesterday that the times when I fail, I am NOT being caring and joyful... (and I might not also be loving, though it might be someone I can love and not respond to well.)

One step at a time… I am learning.

Deb