Our Inheritance

Our inheritance is more than just a financial endowment. It's all of the factors that made us who are today. It's what we receive from our "soil", most significantly our parents, our culture, our schools and our places of worship.

Part of our inheritance is the assumption that our way of doing life is mostly correct , and others's ways are varying degrees of wrong. Our parents may reinforce this through comments such as, "I dont care how others do it, our family does it this way." Certainly our churches place a strong emphasis on the righteous of their faith and practice. Other faiths or denominations are a little bit -or a lot-off.

This self-centered approach towards life and convictions on which it is founded can become a part of the junk we collect and then pass on. Unless we open ourselves to the healing nature of transformation we'll pass on those same wounded convictions to others.

We had no say in determining our inheritance, but our legacy is ours to choose. Our legacy moves outwards from us. It is the impact and influence that we pass on to others. Legacy is that part of us that lives in the lives of other people.

A few years ago i shared a truly powerful experience with my father. He grew up in a christian family in an Irish neighbourhood on Chicago's south side. One day he called and said, "I'm going down to my old neighbourhood today and visiting my parents' gravesite. Do you want to come along?" Though i was in my forties, I had never seen his childhood home or the gravesite of my grandparents, I jumped at the opportunity and said, "I'd love to!"

Driving down the expressway to the South side, I expected some new insights into that neighbourhood. What i didnt anticipate was that we would be visiting my father's inheritance.

Finding the streeet where he grew up, we parked and looked at the houses lining the streets. Dad pointed out his house and where he and his pals played softball and football in the streets. He told me all the names of the families that lived there: the Sullivans, the Kellys, the Burkes, the McCredies. They were Irish immigrant families whose fathers worked as firemen, policemen or street workers.

By this time i was starting to get a different mental picture of my dad. I didnt see a man with white hair and wrinkles whose stride has shortened with arthritis, but a young, active boy with red hair and freckles, full of energy, playing sixteen-inch softball.

We drove over to his high school, Calumet High. Classes were not in session that day and the doors were open, so we walked down the halls and into the cafeteria. He said, "Over there that corner, that's where i always ate lunch. I saw a red-haired boy eating a peanut butter sandwich, six decades ago.

As we went over to the P.E. wing, we walked through a hallway with a collection of old photographs, one of which was the football team from 1940. There he was, in the center, holding the football, my dad; he knew every name of those pictured-characters from a story told long ago.

I realized I had embarked on a trip into the past with my father; that he had a long and deep story; a story that is the preface of my own.

The most powerful part of that day was when we went over to the cemetery where his dad and mom were buried. We found our way to the two gravesites and stood in silence beneath the leafy canopy of a majestic oak tree, pondering those two lives that had made such a profound impact on my father's own: Neal Morgan Glass and Kathryn Mclean Glass.

Finally, dad asked, "Do you mind if i pray?" He prayed a relatively short prayer, but he ended with four words that stood out to me ever since. He thanked the Lord for his family and for his father, and then he said, "I have no regrets." A man, almost eighty years old, who can say that he has no regrets. Remarkable.

I thought, what a father my grandfather must have been. I was moved to be closer to him somehow, so i knelt down next to my Grandpa's gravestone. I just wanted to be in some kind of contact with this man who was a part of my story long ago. He died when i was two or three years old; I remember faint images of sitting on his bed just prior to his death. He called me, "My wee little man."

I placed my hands on his headstone and traced the letters of his name with my fingers. Neal Morgan Glass. I thought to myself, Grandpa, thank you so much for being the kind of dad you were. He was born in a dirt-floor cottage in Northern Ireland, moved to Chicago as a young man and spent his whole life as a streetcar motorcan, driving the significant and the insignificant alike through the busy streets of the city.

He was not a wealthy man, not an important man in the world's eyes. Few would call his a "success" story. Yet he provided for and raised a family; he was faithful to his wife and children; he was a godly man and he passed on a rich spiritual legacy to my father.

Standing there with dad, I realized that perhaps he might want to be alone, so I went over to the car and watched my father. I can still picture him standing silently over his parents' gravestones underneath that huge oak tree on a perfect summer day. The sun shining through the branches, etching shadows on the lawn, a cool breeze rustling the leaves.

When he returned to the car, I said, "Dad, I just want to let you know something...." I hardly even knew what to say what was on my heart. "I realized just now that someday that will be me standing under that oak tree, and I'll be looking at your headstone. Dad, I dont know if you're going to be able to see me, and i doubt you'll know what i'm thinking, but i want to tell you right now what will be on my mind. I'll be thanking God for you. I'll be thanking God for the kind of man and kind of father you were. And i'll have four words on my mind. I have no regret."

Have i led a perfect life? Absolutely not. I've had disappointments and I've stumbled in a number of ways. Do i have the perfect parents? No-great parents but certainly not perfect. But i have a father who is faithful, who is present, who is loving, who received an unusual inheritance from his father and passed on a wonderful legacy.

Dad saw in his father qualities that are becoming increasingly rare in our society: dependablilty, faith, self-sacrifice and humility. My father embraced those same qualities and allowed them to define his life. The inheritance he received became his own legacy.

Thanks to the choices of my grandfather and my father, I can look at what God has brought into my path and truly say:

Lord , you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. (Psalms 16:5-6)

Written by Criag M.Glass

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Blessed reading all, may u draw encouragements from this to continue to shape your own legacy to share and impact those around you as well as the future generations to come.