Legacy Living: Really? Now?
/
A Mom to Mom leader recently asked the question: “Our group will be doing the lesson on ‘Beginning at the End: Legacy Living from Day One.’ (Session One from Inside Out Parenting curriculum) It’s been a few years since you filmed that. Anything to add from ‘on up the road apiece?’ ”
Great question! Good enough even to make me do the unthinkable: sit down and watch my own DVD teaching. Tough. If you don’t think so, just imagine watching a 30-minute video of yourself!
It was worth it, though. It reminded me how absolutely crucial these mom-questions are: What do you want your kids to remember? Who (not what, as in a career choice) do you want them to be? Whom do you want them to serve? What legacy to you want to leave? What legacy do you want to live?
Such heady questions, these. I hear you younger moms: “You’ve got to be kidding! All I hope and pray for is day-by-day (or hour-by-hour) survival! And you ask me to consider my legacy?! Right . . .” And I hear you moms and grandmoms whose children grew up so fast (in retrospect, yes—but not in those long-ago endless days and sleepless nights) and are now off and running: “Oh, yes. Yes! Yes! Yes! Ask these questions now, right from the beginning. They really do matter.” Yes indeed! That's my answer, too.
So here are a few “big picture” observations for Legacy Living 2016:
- Psalm 78:3-7 rings truer than ever. The more things change in our world, the more crucial the message becomes: “We will tell the next generation . . . the praiseworthy deeds and the wonders of the Lord . . . so the next generation would know . . . even the children yet to be born . . . and they in turn would tell their children . . . then they would put their trust in God.” Our church has a pastor of “NextGen Ministries,” and I am grateful. But it all starts with you, moms, in the long sometimes lonely days and too-short (the sleeping part, that is) nights as you do what my daughter recently referred to as the “divine invisible work of mothering.”
- It might seem a bit early to bring up such things in the early years of parenting. Is all this an intolerable burden to put on a young mom? This summer I had an “up close and personal” look at what parenting 4 children (ages 7, 4, 2, and 11 months) is like, as our daughter, Erika, who lives in Ireland, visited us here for nearly 4 weeks. For this Nana, it was heaven. But for the mama? Relentless. Absolutely relentless. The question haunts me: Why on earth would we even talk about “legacy living” and “crucial questions” and “intentional parenting” to a mother caught up in a whirlwind?
- Why? First, because it really does matter—and you will be glad one day that someone brought these questions up with you before your kids seem to have inexplicably disappeared before your eyes. Second, because the same God who gave you these children will give you the grace and strength you need to raise them. Sound familiar, Mom to Mom moms? I hope so! And HE is the one ultimately in charge of your kids. Another familiar reminder: He loves them more than you do! In the midst of the chaos of your life, He is there when you can’t be. He covers your mistakes—even your desperate “I feel like a failure” mom-attacks. He knows your heart (which is both scary and encouraging). It really does help to be asking the right questions and building on the right foundation, even in your wild crazy mom-life.
- Finally, this all makes me more thankful than ever that we have Mom to Mom. In our groups, Titus 2 leaders can encourage you. Not with their flawless parenting or picture-perfect families.But with their ringing reminders: Parenting is a marathon. God is not finished with them—or you—yet. His Word is the eternal rock on which we stand (or even cling to desperately in the storms). His love and His presence is a no-matter-what promise. He will never leave you or forsake you. Never.
And don’t you forget that!