Legacy

My sweet husband was on the UAFS campus a couple months ago when he walked up on a small red brick with my name on it. He sent the picture to me of the stone we’d heard about and looked for but were never able to find.

Grandpa Collins as his grandkids called him passed away in 2002 at 84 years old. The stories behind my grandpa aren’t all as sweet as this donation he made in my honor. He told us during construction at one of our local community colleges which is now a University that he had donated the brick to have my name on it. I’m not sure why he felt led to do this and he never really said.

For me Grandpa was a man who worked all the time. He also walked everywhere he wanted to go. Grandpa never had a car or a license and it didn’t seem to bother him. A very skilled carpenter as a hobby and a school custodian the rest of the time. He grew up playing in the band and joined the Army and fought in WWII as a medic.

Once he came home after the war to raise a family with my grandmother, alcohol had consumed him. Life for my dad growing up was rocky and the picture he had of his Father was so different from the memory I held of my Grandpa. When my dad was an adult my grandpa gave His life to the Lord. This is why he seemed quite different to me than he did to my dad.

Grandpa had a transformation. The one that happens when we allow Jesus to be our Savior.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 2 Corinthians 5:17

Although Grandpa did better with his grands than his own children the legacy he left my Dad was different than the one left for me. My Dad was the best and Loved his children with everything in him but because of the memories he had growing up were hard he struggled a bit as a parent. And then he found himself raising 3 babies alone. He used the memories and his past to do better for his children. He fought hard for each one of us. When I was a teen and he had remarried he found Jesus. What a transformation God made in him. One thing that was the same before and after he gave his life to the Lord was how much he loved each one of us. The Legacy he left behind was one of Hard Work, Kindness, Devotion and a Love that never stops fighting.

The legacy I’m leaving for my family is so important to me. The one laid at my feet being from a broken home isn’t what I desire to leave behind. I’ve prayerfully spent most of my adult life working to do better. The same that Dad did as well.

Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain. Psalm 127:1

In Psalm 127 the description is building a house but I believe that you could also replace the word house with the word family and the scripture could still apply. Unless the Lord is in charge of building your family and His will and your will align you could be laboring or working so hard in vain. Without the presence of the Lord and knowing He is to be put first in your family how can the Legacy your building be one worth passing to your family. I want the Lord watching over every aspect of my family, guarding and protecting us. Helping each of us to make wise decisions as my husband and I build our family and put together a Legacy worth leaving behind.