What Is Your Legacy?

Welcome to Traces Space...
Funny how a little football and the drama that has come along with it can spark a thought or two into my mind.  This whole "de-flate gate" has really stirred a question in me...What is or what will be my legacy.
One tends to go right to our children, or our belongings, or even our jobs, the memories of the things that we may or may not have gotten right while we have been on this life's journey.
The whole idea that our whole legacy can be dependent on one choice, one decision whether it be bad or good is kind of up to us.  And when looking at the whole scheme of things, we are all pretty superficial when we look at others and really critical  when we look at ourselves.
I thought about the legacy of that football team...Honestly it won't matter how many games they win or how great the players were...what folks will remember is the history of them being cheaters.  All over the choice to play of all things with deflated footballs.  Really its kind of funny.
What is it that I will leave here that folks will remember me by?  Will it be my writing, my singing, my wonderful ability of working with small children? My children and grandchild?  Or will it be my horrible driving attitude, or my inability to jump on board the cat train?  My uncanny sarcastic views? My faith?
What ever it is I hope is not defined in one second.
The bible is full of characters with well defined legacies. Really super good ones, and some not so good.  From the first couple to Jesus himself we see how life choices can mold ones final thoughts on someone.  We see how one person's choice can bring on what is called "generational" curses.  We see one persons choice to trust brings on deliverance.  Our choices effect the future generations.
David danced, but David cheated...David paid the ultimate price...but his legacy wasn't based on his cheating, it was based on getting it right with God.  Lots wife looked back, but Lot didn't.  I could go on and on, but I bet you know exactly what I mean...
Based on one choice it could sum up our whole life..."Could" being the important word there.
At this point I have no idea what I am going to leave behind that people will be able to see and say hey that was a Tracy thing.  But one thing I do know is what I would like it to be...
I would like my legacy to be that I was always fair, that I looked at both sides of every story, that I never for one moment felt that I was better or above anyone else.  That I loved my family with everything that I have, and that I always honored and praised God with extreme intensity.  Everything else just a bonus.
So what do you think your legacy will be? Have a good week...see you soon.

It Is Well...Is it?

Welcome to Traces Space.
When Peace like a river attendeth my soul.  What a profound lyric.  While its truth is prolific and full of itself, I found myself questioning the peace or lack there of I may actually have in my life.
I found myself doing a little research on the song writers, Phillip Bliss and Horatio Spafford.  The incredible stories surrounding their lives and the road that God would have them to travel... I found that these two gentlemen had a same, same but different type of existence, and withstood the ultimate tests of God. 
If you know anything of the story of "It is Well" you know that Horatio Spafford was a wealthy man who had lost most of his fortune during the Chicago fire...Then he had sent his family ahead of himself to England for a family vacation, only for he and his wife to lose their children in a ship wreck.  That is where the first four verses of "It is Well" came from.  The final verse was written many years later after he and his family had left their church because they were told that the reason they had suffered was due to  a "divine punishment"...but yet to him it still was well...He and his family never gave up on God...it just made the relationship with God Stronger.
Phillip Bliss came from nothing.  His family from Pennsylvania, he left home when he was eleven years old.  He left home to work laboring in the lumber fields, where he was exposed to music and also to God.  He eventually worked his way through and earned his teaching certificate.  He was then encouraged to teach music.  Eventually becoming a Evangelist.  He and his wife died in a train accident in Ohio, leaving behind two small children.
You see to me in the midst of their adversity they did not lose focus on God.  They walked in the calling no matter what the circumstance, whether it was having it all and losing it, or coming from nothing and making it work.  For them it was always well.
Fast forward to today...I have been really thinking about it "being well with my soul"...you see I believe that along the way in this life journey that we are all on that we have to somehow find peace in the midst of every circumstance...Not only to simply face it but to make it through it.  No matter how difficult the circumstance the end result is the "wellness" of God.  A good friend of mine always says she does not want to be "considered" as Job was, but yet God knew Job, knew his character and knew that Job in the circumstances that he faced and even the wrongful encouragement of friends would in the end pass the test and proclaim that "it is well".
So where ever you are in your journey, what ever the new thing is that you are facing have peace and hope in knowing that through Christ all things will be well...It is well with my soul...
See you soon