The Importance of Legacy
I don’t believe in coincidence. As a Christian, I believe in the sovereignty of God. My study of the Bible has taught me the character of God, confirmed the sovereignty of God, and taught me how God is working all things together. In the book of Genesis, God creates the world and everything in it. We see purpose in creation and even in the order of creation. Throughout the Old Testament, we see how God uses those the elects, prophets, and kings to lead his people. We get to the book of Job and we see how God allows hardship and pain. We know, with certainty, that God allowed the suffering Job endured. The Bible is clear about the conversation God had with Satan. If you’re not paying close attention though, you might miss how God confronts Job. After chapters and chapters of lament, friends who are terrible comforters, God speaks to Job.
At the start of Chapter 38 in Job, there is a heading, “The LORD answers Job.” When God answers Job and his laments, does he give platitudes? Does he tell him, “poor you, you’ll be okay. Chin up, Job. You’re enough, Job” ?
No, no he doesn’t.
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. [Job 38:4]
Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you comprehended the expanse of earth? Declare, if you know all this. [Job 38:16-18]
Who has put wisdom in the inwards parts or given understanding to the mind? [Job 38:36]
I called it sassy before because God is pointing to His character, who He is and will always be. From Job chapter thirty-eight all the way to chapter forty-one, God is reminding Job that He is God. While we, as readers get to appreciate the sarcasm throughout the rhetorical questions, Job’s response was repentance.
I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Job 42:2
There are plenty of examples and verses I could pull from the New Testament too. The Bible, from cover to cover is clear: God is in control and working all things out. Evil cannot work without God’s permission. So no, I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe that God is orchestrating everything, even the small stuff.
When I first put together my calendar for posts for this month, today’s post was going to be completely different. Then, as I got more organized and updated my planner for my posts, I saw that I would have a blog post on September 11th.
As a Millennial, September 11th is my generation's JFK assassination moment. It’s the moment that sticks out in our minds because we remember what we were doing. We remember how the world responded. We are twenty-four years past that tragic attack and in a lot of ways, I think we’ve broken our promise that we made those victims. September 11th is recognized as Patriot Day. We have the graphics we post and share online that say “Never Forget” but in a lot of ways, I think we have forgotten.
So, a week or so ago, when I made the connection to this day and the fact that a blog post would be coming out, I pivoted. I decided to write about legacy. What legacy did 9/11 leave and have we honored the legacy we promised when we swore to “never forget?” I wrote the idea down, essentially scheduling it until I got to my writing time to really flesh out the post. [This is a behind the scenes look into my process, I plan a lose framed idea, pick a day for the post and write / research later]
Before I could get to writing, I got news about my grandmother that had me halting my life and heading out to Chicago to see her. My grandmother is the strongest woman I know. I am fortunate enough to know a few strong women, women who encourage and inspire me and others I have been blessed with being able to walk alongside them in hard times. If I had to rank them, my grandmother would take the top spot. My grandmother has had to endure watching my mom, her addiction, her illness and everything that would lead to my mom passing away at the age of 51. Everything that would make some classify my childhood as traumatic, my grandmother had to watch from the standpoint of a mother. Two years after my mom passed, my grandfather, her husband of well over fifty years, passed away. Then, two months later, her son, my uncle, passed away.
There’s a popular sentiment that comes to mind, parents should never have to bury their children. I don’t know what to say to my grandmother who has had to bury her entire family. She is now ninty-two and is the first one to remind me that she’s the oldest person in her church congregation. She had endured more losses, including her friends and more family members. When it comes to that “side” of my family, my grandmother is all I have left.
While I was there last week, I thought a lot about legacy. You see, my grandma still lives in the house she and my grandpa bought. They haven’t moved, not once. That was where they raised my mom and my uncle. I even found a set of handprints in the cement, left by my mom and her brother in 1958.
The walls are decorated with photos from everybody’s childhood. You will find photos of my mom as a child, as a high schooler and even some photos of her as an adult. You will find photos of me as a toddler (someone ask me about the banana photo, please) along with photos of my brothers. You will find photos of my cousin and his two little girls. My grandma’s house is like a living, breathing museum to the legacy she lived, a legacy she created with my grandpa, a legacy that led to my birth and led to two adorable great grandchildren who call her GG. All of the photos I've ever sent her, from dating my husband to our early marriage days, to the toddlerhood of my oldest to bringing my youngest into the world and photos of both of them live alongside older counterparts.
My grandma doesn’t have internet in her house. She has the most basic cable package and each night she’ll watch some local news and then find a program to watch until she is ready to go to bed. During my time there, she indulged my oldest (who came with me) with watching some sports. In those moments, I learned that my grandma loves basketball, thinks football is boring to watch (too slow), and watching college volleyball would win out over football if given the choice.
When I first got to her house, a friend had picked us up from the airport, we stopped for lunch and we first congregated around her kitchen table to eat. During our meal, she made a comment about wishing she could just throw out all the little clutter piles that had accumulated on the table over the past month or so.
That gave me my first task to accomplish during my visit. I was going to clean up the kitchen table and get rid of those piles. It took me most of the day, but I accomplished that goal. I didn’t just throw out everything, I went through the piles and saved what needed to be saved. There was some reorganization but when it came to dinner time and we were eating at that table, my grandma was elated. “There’s my kitchen table,” she said.
Why does this matter? It’s just a kitchen table, who cares? To my grandma though, that kitchen table was where life happened. Almost anytime I called her, she was sitting around that kitchen table, going over the mail, writing a card, or doing a word search puzzle. That kitchen table was the same kitchen table that I ate at when I was eight years old, on my first trip with my mom to visit my family.
While I cleaned up the things I could, set up appointments and helped my grandma, I thought about her house and the legacy it shared. The legacy she was living and breathing, a legacy that I’m continuing. I thought a lot about how my grandma enjoyed the simple things, like a milkshake with lunch. Or how she suggested I get donuts while I was out getting coffee and the joy it brought her when I came back, donuts in hand. The smile she shared with my son as they shared the donuts, leaving me maybe two to eat for myself. (I got donut holes, or bites, not full fledged donuts)
When I got back home last weekend, I thought a lot about how this post would look at legacy from a family standpoint and a history standpoint. The things we value, the things we remember. I was thinking a lot about memory and how we choose the things we forget.
Now, as I write this, the night before September 11, 2025, I’m writing mere hours after the shooting and assassination of Charlie Kirk. Some have already said that this moment in history will live on much like JFK’s assassination or even 9/11.
I don’t believe in coincidence. The same God who ordered the world and everything in it, the beauty of sunrises and sunsets and how everything connects together also knows the day in and day out of our lives. Was the changing the theme of this post some Holy Spirit guidance? Possibly, I’m very hesitant to say it was God speaking, but I don’t believe in coincidence and since that change, I’ve been given a front row seat to many different aspects of legacy.
Charlie Kirk’s assassination is a surprise to all of us. The news is still hard to digest and accept and I’m simply someone who has admired Charlie and was inspired by his simple methodology of having conversations. As a word lover who loves to talk, I appreciated how he was able to bring debate back to young people. Watching Charlie Kirk was like watching a masterclass in civil debate, a skill most of us have lost, if we ever had it at all. While we are heartbroken and shocked and possibly still in tears, God isn’t any of those things.
The legacy of Charlie Kirk is one that will echo throughout the lives of those he has touched, which is a lot of us, myself included. My grandma’s legacy will live out in me, and in her great-grandchildren, who are blessed to still have her in their lives to share stories and show embarrassing photos of their mother (again, I reference the banana photo).
When it comes to legacy, it is so easy to think about accomplishments, or money, or assets. Things that prove we worked hard and have something to show for it. The things we can leave to our children and our children’s children. This type of legacy isn’t a bad one to leave, in fact, I’m pretty sure the Bible talks about being a good steward that way. Legacy is what we pass down and pass on.
It goes so much deeper than assets and inheritances though. Legacy is passing on values, beliefs, and ideas. It’s that type of legacy that makes me wonder if we forgot what 9/11 really did. Looking around, one could argue that the values America had and stood for, values we were willing to go to war for, aren’t so evident today. Did we just assume that our values and beliefs would continue to pass down through the generations? What gets passed down if we’re not intentional about it?
It would be so easy to believe that darkness is winning. That evil is winning and that the legacies of all those who came before us are lost. In reality though, we can change it. We can start to care about legacy again, we can choose to remember and share. We can teach our children our values and we can stand for truth. Darkness cannot overcome light. Lies cannot outweigh truth. Truth always wins. All we have to do is decide to start talking, to start sharing, to teach our values.
Which brings me to the most important value, faith. God isn’t surprised by evil and God is working through all things, even the tragic events today and the tragic events we will be remembering tomorrow, for the glory of His kingdom. Thanks to the gospel, I am justified and made right with God. Not because of anything I have done, I’m a dirty, rotten sinner. I’m not perfect, but the perfect one, Jesus Christ, lived his perfect life and then sacrificed himself so I can be made right. It’s His work that gives me true freedom.
As we spend time this week, remember the horrific attack on 9/11 and now the heartbreaking murder of Charlie Kirk, I hope we can take time to think about the importance of legacy and look at the legacy of those we have lost. What would they want you to know? What would they tell you? What values would they want to remind you of, one last time?
In the meantime, pray. Pray for Charlie Kirk’s family. Pray for the family members of those who were lost in the attacks on 9/11. Pray for your pastors as they continue to point us all to Christ and His truth. Pray for our leaders and for those who speak truth publicly. Pray for boldness to share the gospel. Pray for America and for peace. Take comfort that God is in control, even when we don’t understand the things that are happening around us.