A Legacy that Learns
This reflection explores the tension many feel when looking back on their upbringing with both gratitude and grief. It wrestles with the temptation to oversimplify the past, the cost of pioneering a new path, and the pain that often comes with generational growth. Yet it offers hope—pointing to the fruit that emerges when families commit to a shared legacy of faithfulness, humility, and love across generations.
God’s Provision in Times of Plenty and Trial
I started this past Thanksgiving Day with the six turkeys I had cooked spread before me on our kitchen island —two fried, two roasted, and two smoked. The air was filled with the rich aroma of flour browning in the gravy, mingling with the savory fragrance of roasted meat that has been the smell of Thanksgiving since I was a small child.
The Cost of Selfishness and the Rewards of Love
We raise our children not for immediate pleasure but for a continuity of faith, a generational fire that will burn until the Lord returns. We give up our time, our pride, our selfish wants, all for the King’s glory. And at life’s end, those who chose this path will find themselves surrounded by blessings, hope, cheerfulness, and growth. The selfish, however, spin inward, trapped in a narrowing, solitary orbit.