Reflections on a “Day”

It has been a wonderful time to be with Nikki’s Mom, Mary during this Christmas season.  But a very heartbreaking time as well.  Nikki’s father Ken Hankins, passed away less than six months ago suddenly from pancreatic cancer.

We spent all day Monday, December 28, my birthday, cleaning out Nikki’s Dad’s office at the church he and his wife planted 22 years ago.  Very difficult for Nikki’s Mom.  Her Mom repeated time and again the following words to Nikki and her sisters as they sorted through things, “This is the last 30 years of our life in these stacks of papers and books.  Our life has been so intertwined between family, ministry and this church.”

While helping and watching I could not help but hear my own words echo in my ear that I have shared so many times with people as I preach, “All of us one day will go out into eternity and the things of this world will no longer matter. Someone else will own the very things we own.”

It was a very difficult, yet needed time for Nikki, her Mom, and her sisters.  At the same time it wasn’t.  Grief is a strange thing.  It, like time, stops for no one.  It, like a storm on a Spring day, can blow in at any moment it seems.

This caused me to sit back and think to myself, on my 33rd birthday as we cleaned out the office (of a Pastor, the office a husband to my mother-in-law, the office of the Daddy to my wife and her two sisters, the office of a Poppa to my daughter, the office of my father-in-law and friend Ken Hankins), what will my life be reduced to and summed up as when I step into eternity to be with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?  Will I have made an impact?  Will I have made a difference?  Who will have been touched, challenged, encouraged, and altered for all eternity due to the life, the ministry that I have had?  Who will be the one(s) helping Nikki and Lexi clean out my office?  Who will sit with my books, study materials and touch the lives of future generations?  What legacy will I leave for Nikki and Lexi?

My father-in-law touched many lives as a husband, father, grandfather, and pastor.  Only Heaven will tell the lives he touched.  But in the eyes and lives of those four women who I had the honor and priviledge of helping to clean out his office he was truly his legacy.  He showed them what is means to love Christ, His Word, and His Gospel.  He loved them unconditionally and was committed to them.  And some day, because of the Gospel he preached, had shared with others, because of the change that the Gospel had made in His life, his wife’s life, and also his daughters lives (not to mention the hundreds of others that came to know Christ through his preaching and sharing it with them as well) this family will be reunited together someday.

Yes….now time ticks by slowly many days for Mary, Nikki, Christi, and Katie as they grieve the loss of a husband, daddy, grandfather, pastor, and friend.  Yes…Jason, Jordan, myself and many others love these women and are doing all we can to “laugh with those who laugh and cry with those who cry” (see Romans 12:15 & 1 Corinthians 12:26) but we do not shed tears for no reason or have a heart that is hopeless  (see 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).  Our hope, peace and joy lies in Christ, Him crucified, buried, reason and coming again (see 1 Corinthians 15:50-58)!

All in all this causes me to view the things that truly matter:  my personal walk with Christ and my family.  More than ever I want to grow in my walk with Christ.  I want to live each day showing and telling Nikki and Lexi my love and appreciation of them and the love of my/our Savior.  I want to gaurd my character and integrity.  I want to lift to lift up Jesus, love all people, reach many with the Gospel, and pour my life into a few through mentoring them and helping them in their walk and journey with Christ.  I am more committed than ever to the Glory of God, His Word, His Gospel, and His Kingdom.

What about you?  What is the take away?  What about your life?  What about your legacy?  What really matters?  Whose kingdom will you build?

As I end these reflections of my 33rd birthday, I have one line that has been playing over in my mind constantly as I have been writing this:  “Life is short, death is sure, sin’s the curse, but Christ’s the cure!”