"It's a well of pure water when I'm thirsty and dry. And bread when I'm hungry and worn. When the battle is raging, it's my faithful sword, a shelter from life's troubled storm. It's a light to my pathway and a lamp to my feet, when this world gets so dark I can't see. And I've not made a change in one word that is says, but it sure made a change in me."
And then Ted's glasses that he left out...sitting on top of the Bible he was reading before he once again left for Mexico for two weeks.
I came home from school last Monday after he had already been picked up for the airport and walked into our room to see this. My heart flipped flopped. Ted sits in this chair every day and reads. I don't always see what he is reading or doing...but sometimes...I walk in to see him. I feel like I am interrupting those quiet, personal moments. I miss him when he is not here. I miss hearing him share what he has read.
"This blessed Old Book that I hold in my hand. It's true from beginning to end. It's the solid foundation where I firmly stand. Sin kept me from it, now it keeps me from sin."
Lately, I am reminded that those moments are what take us through the difficult times in life. "Life is hard, it is messy, and if Christians don't show and share that...they are making a big mistake!" Ted shared those thoughts with me on Saturday night and I can't stop thinking about them.
So many men and women in the Bible...real people, living in real places, with real problems. Jesus met people in their struggles of life! How many of us have put on a face for everyone to see...and have hid what is truly happening in our lives and hearts? Jesus said, "Come unto Me, all you who are heavy laden..." Yet, in our pride we think we have to always present this perfect little checked box of a Christian life that isn't touched by problems and pain. We are missing the point of the Gospel. We are missing out on opportunities to touch people. We are misrepresenting Christ to a lost world.
"When I think what it cost just to hold in my hand, I'm reminded I owe a great debt, to all of the martyrs who'd gone to the stake, and quote it with their dying breath. Now its critics are many, believers are few, but one thing I've found to be true. If you find when you read it that there's something wrong, there's something wrong with you."
When you see the things that are left behind by people who gone Home to Heaven, very few things are more personal than someone's notes and thoughts shared in a Book written by the Creator of the Universe. Glimpses of struggles and lessons learned from their Savior and Friend...left behind for those who are striving to live a life pleasing to God. That is what a legacy looks like to me.
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