Spiritual legacy

Every morning, hours before they "have" to get up, my parents get up to read and pray together. In our family, we've always called it devotions. My father reads some, then my mother, they open other versions and sometimes look at Greek and Hebrew. They pray long and hard for a whole list of people they love. Before showers, before work-outs, before breakfast, accompanied by good strong Swedish coffee, these two are as faithful as the sunrise.

I remember days of hating it as a child, trying to keep sleepy lids open while we went through our routine. The very first time I passed out from my heart condition was during devotions. I resented how much time God took up in our daily routine - time better spent sleeping when I was a teen, so I thought.

I've known these bindings since I was a child. Strong's, Young's, commentaries, Unger's, Vine's, Gaebelein's, and Matthew Henry. I've read through them many times during my life. They stand like guards between the posts of my parents devotion table, set between their rockers in the sitting room in their master bedroom.

It wasn't until I got out into the big wide world, in college and in my 20's, that I began to understand that my parents had given me something most people don't ever receive. I have every capability of being a Bible scholar. And I frequently am. One of the first books I bought in my 20's - really expensive book, that is - is a copy of Strong's Hebrew, Chaldean and Greek Dictionaries.

And even more than that, the posturing of prayer, the prostration before an awesome and beautiful provider God. I learned that from my infancy. And I blink up now as I sit, 32 years old, in on their devotions as a special treat one Friday morning, and the beauty of it takes my breath away. I (shame, shame) grab up my camera and take a photo of Papa and one of Mama praying. So I can remember this always, when they are long gone.

Perhaps more encouraging than the simple fact of this spiritual legacy they leave me with is the fact that they are the first generation to do so, giving incomparable hope to other parents wishing to do so for their own children. My Holmen grandparents were doubting and nominal Lutherans, my mother's family a quagmire of Catholicism, addiction, and chaos.

I pray I don't drop this ball they've got rolling. That my children see beauty in my wrinkled hands at 55, the grief of trembling lips as pains are brought before the righteous throne of God.

Sometimes it amazes me

How strong the power of love can be

Sometimes you just take my breath away

You watch my love grow like a child

Sometimes gentle and sometimes wild

Sometimes you just take my breath away

And it's too good to slip by

Too good to lose

Too good to just be there

Just to use

I'm gonna stand on a mountain top

And tell the news

That you take my breath away

Sometimes it amazes me

How strong the power of love can be

Sometimes you just take my breath away

Your beauty is there in all I see

And when I feel your eyes on me

Oh don't you know you just take my breath away
~Eva Cassidy's You Take My Breath Away~

For a short article with lots of ideas on leaving spiritual legacy for your children,
visit this link: http://www.peopleoffaith.com/spiritual-legacy.htm