How will our story read?

Last year I attended a memorial service for the wife of a friend. Since I didn’t know her very well, I paid close attention to what people said about her. In all, probably a dozen people took the ‘mic’ and shared how her life impacted them. I had met her once and knew her to be a Christian, but, surprisingly, no one spoke about the impact of her spiritual life. I hope it was just an awful omission. But it did make me think: ‘what would people say about me?’ And would some tell a different story than others?

If “it is no longer I who live, but Christ is living in me” (Gal. 2:20), then shouldn’t my life story be more about Jesus than me, about how His life impacted others through me? If I am being conformed to the image of Jesus (Rom. 8:29), shouldn’t my character be indistinguishable from His?

As if eulogizing the Corinthians, Paul said “you are living letters… written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God” (2 Cor. 3:2). When I wrote my father’s eulogy last year, I chose to focus on the impact of his spiritual life on his family and friends. To me, that’s the ‘real’ story.

Again, I must ask myself ‘how will my story read?’ One thing for sure is that I want my family and friends to tell the ‘same’ story—that is, I hate to think that I made a positive impact with some and a negative one with others. Thank God, I’m not finished yet. There is still time to write my story.