Tuesday, September 28, 2021
What do you want written in your Epitaph?
This December, I will be married to Kyrsten for 24 years. That means I have lived under my own roof with someone else other than my parents for longer than I was growing up in our Ringwood home. During my journey with my wife I've learned a lot about how to be a man, how to be a husband, how to be a leader, how to be a servant, how to be a father and how to be a modern gentleman. But all those are works in progress. For the first 23 years of my life I had a different set of skills to develop. I learned how to eat, I learned how to talk and walk. I learned how to use the bathroom properly, make my bed, tie a necktie, go to school and learn about the world and how to survive in it, what it means to have responsibility, hold down a steady job and eventually live independent of my parents. During those 23 years I also learned one man's definition of what it means to love and how to be loved.
Someone very dear to my heart has encouraged me lately to ask myself the question, "When you passed from this life on to the next what do you want written on your tombstone". How do you want to be remembered by your family and friends. There's a verse in the Bible that talks about my father and I didn't realize it until after he had passed last week. But if he never told me before, he's telling me now, that this is how we will remember him. When you hear these definitions of what love is, think about my father, John and how all of these triaits have been written in our hearts as what defines him...
Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects,
always trusts, always hopes,
and always perseveres.
Love never fails.
My father never failed to live his life through these attributes. Each of us can remember him as would be written as his epitaph.
