“Mama? Can you please pass the meat to me?” She asked as we were sitting around the table for dinner. I had slow cooked a roast all day in the oven and we were all eager to eat it. There’s just something about having a roast with potatoes and carrots that just reminds me of fall and the changing seasons. Whenever the days are shorter and the temperature cooler, I have this desire to cook foods that are warm and satisfying. It’s a reminder to me how quickly seasons are passing by. Just yesterday it seemed like the snow was melting and giving way to spring but here we are with the leaves starting to change and a crispness in the air.

We started passing the dishes around the table and everyone filled their plates. As we settled in for dinner, the conversation started. Often you never know what random thought someone may have come to their mind that they need to talk about but it always makes for interesting conversations. This evening someone asked “Do you know who your great grandpa was?” In my head, I thought, ‘Of course I do…’ because how would I not know his name but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had no idea. Not that I didn’t care about who he was but he passed away way before I was born and I never thought about learning about him. I don’t know anything about my great grandparents on either side of my family. It reminded me just how quickly a generation is lost and forgotten.

Death is something that we don’t often talk about. It’s not something that most people dwell on or even give thought to on a normal day but it’s something that 100% of us will experience. Be it the death of a spouse, a child, a friend, an acquaintance, someone you knew from years ago, it is going to happen to us all but once it does, how many generations will it take for you to be forgotten?

The other day as I was driving, I saw the bumper sticker “coexist” and thought to myself that it will never happen because it’s a fact, it never will. Why? Because we love our sin. We want to do what pleases us and look where it has gotten us. People want a Godless world and because of that, the darkness is taking over. People desire this utopia that will never be reality this side of eternity. But why do they desire it? What is that longing inside of them that longs for peace and perfection? That longs for others to just all get along and coexist. It’s because eternity has been placed inside all of us. It’s because we were created to worship but people are worshiping the creation and not the Creator. We will never coexist because when sin is called out, it makes us angry. It makes us want to fight and honestly just be irrational. If we stopped and actually thought about the things we spend our time doing, it’s all worthless. Eventually everything is going to end up in a landfill and your home is going to be like the forgotten homes you drive past on the side of the road. The homes that once were filled with people and laughter. The homes that someone took their time to carefully think out the design and took the time to build are now just empty and lifeless. There is no value in them.

BUT THERE IS HOPE. Hope in knowing that this is not the end. We were designed to live in perfection and one day we will if we surrender our lives to The Savior. If we see ourselves as sinners and see our inability to save ourselves. We can live lives that aren’t afraid of death. When we live in the hope that is given to us, we live our lives in a way that will then impact the following generations even when they forget who we are. I don’t know my great grandparents but somewhere down the line there was someone who raised their family in The Lord and it was then passed on to the following generations. Because of their faithfulness to Him, it changed the path that we could have been going down but sadly it just takes one generation for that to be lost.

I will one day be forgotten. My name will one day never be said again. No one will know who I was or what I did but I pray that The Lord keeps using the foundation that Ryan and I have set down for our children to keep building the house for the future generations to come. That we don’t put our hope in things of this world. That the children all see their need for A Savior and turn from the evil that surrounds us. That they use their lives to then raise the following generation to walk in the ways of The Lord. Life is but a vapor. It’s so short. Talk to anyone who is above the age of 70. They will tell you just how quickly time goes by but in the short years we do have, how will we spend our time? How you be intentional with it?