Living Between a Heritage and a Legacy

The following is my tribute to my mother-in-law, a mom living between her heritage and her legacy. As we celebrate Mother’s Day, I thought that this would be a fitting entry.

You see, my mother-in-law is a woman who has impacted my life in a great way. Over the course of the last 16 years that I have known her, she has taught me much. Over the course of the last couple of years, we have learned much together as we spent many hours caring for Tiffany and simply enjoying life as a family. In the last year, my love and respect for my mother-in-law has grown even more as I have watched her live through a very difficult time of life as she experienced the death of her daughter and her mom within six weeks of each other. Within six weeks her legacy and her heritage came together in Heaven. 

The Heritage that she had in her mother is a rich heritage. Her mother was a kind and gracious woman who passed on to my mother-in-law many of the needed traits she would need to live through the life that God had called her to live. She was faithful to her God, her husband, and her family throughout her life. She was a genteel woman who graciously served her God and her family. It is a Heritage worth emulating and a Heritage that should never be forgotten. 

The Legacy that she has in her daughter is an unfathomable legacy. By that it is one that is hard to understand. Usually your legacy is what you leave behind once you are gone, but Mom’s legacy went ahead to glory first. Although we all make our own decisions, one’s children many times is an indictment upon you. Mom’s legacy, my wife, is an indictment that speaks volumes about my mother-in-law. I got to see up close the impact that Tiffany’s mom had upon her life and how she lived with Cystic Fibrosis. Tiffany’s desire to not quit, to not make excuses, to trust in God, to keep living, to invest in the eternal, to pursue excellence, to love music, to love her husband and her family, and her gracious spirit towards people and life’s difficulties is a legacy to the life of my mother-in-law. It reveals a woman who lived that out in front of Tiffany through it all. Tiffany and I in the last couple years of her life would often laugh about how much she was becoming her mom whether it was how she wrote, spoke, or viewed life. Many fear that their wife may become their mother-in-law--Me, I welcomed it!

So Mom, on this day that you remember your Heritage and your Legacy, know that you have forever changed my life. I am privileged to have walked this way with you. I love you and am thankful that today I can say Happy Mother’s Day as your Heritage and your Legacy are getting to worship our Savior face to face. Although they are not with us today, they are with the King of kings. Your Heritage will never be forgotten and your Legacy will always be loved!