Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Family, Legacy, and What's Important



In June, Jennifer, the girls and I took a trip to Colorado to see family. On the way back, we stopped in Western Colorado to stay a night with the parents of my good friend and college roommate, Jim, who currently lives in Kenya with his family, where they are missionaries. Each day, Jim's grandfather joins Jim's mom and dad for lunch and dinner, since he lives on the same plot of land as they do, which he's farmed along with other land in the area for most of his life.

After dinner, I had the blessing of chatting for a long while with Jim's grandpa. I had not seen this wonderful old man since I attended the memorial service of his wife of 63 years about two years ago, and I had forgotten how much fun he is to talk to. Neither of us are too shy about sharing our opinions!

We talked for well over an hour about our families, life in Utah, faith, and church politics. However, what will stick with me about our conversation is what he had to say about his legacy. At one point, he began to talk about his full life. He then began to list off the names of his children, grandchildren, and even some great-grandchildren, and their relationship with Jesus, as best as he could tell. "That," he told me, "is how I judge my life."

We quickly moved on to other topics of conversation, but his attitude toward how he judges his life on Earth is not one I will soon forget.

Thanks for reading! Don't miss out; sign up to have posts delivered right to your inbox via FeedBurner: