Leave A Mark

I was looking through my blog posts and found several unpublished drafts.  This was written in 2013 and never published.  I don't know exactly what I was going through at the time, but here it is.

A week or so ago, I read a question asking what we believe God is ultimately calling us to.  I had a hard time with that.  I know I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now, but haven't considered where I will even be in 5 years.  Am I still going to homeschool?  Am I still going to teach at church or be a worship leader?  Am I even going to keep my unsporting license or will I be back in nursing full-time?  I prayed through all of that, but I still don't have an answer to any of those questions.  I'm really okay with that, too!  Here is what I do know, I am going to leave a mark!
This is not a vision of grandeur or a pipe dream.  I am going to leave a mark in history during my lifetime.  If I happen to have done that already for someone, then great, but my life isn't over and I'm going to do it again and again until I can no longer move or speak.  I am not satisfied with just being a piece of wallpaper, I'm going to be a usable vessel.  When I leave this world, I don't really even care if my name is remembered or even my face.  The mark I desire to leave is a knowing of the Creator of the universe.  The One who formed my face and called it lovely.  The One who made my voice and desires to hear it speaking and singing praises to Him who is Worthy of all praise!  I want to make known Jesus!
By my actions and by my words, I desire that others will want to know this Jesus, the Word made Flesh.  I don't want that they would be turned off to Him because of my hippocracy!  I am human, but I want to live what I believe.  When others see the best parts of me, I want them to know that it is Him in me.  I am not good in my own power.  I read a poem to my kids and it took me looking up word to help explain the meaning to them for me to grasp it as well.  Wow!  It is powerful and reinforces what I've already been contemplating.  I will share the last few stanzas here:

A PSALM OF LIFE 
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.


Wow!  I want to leave footprints on the sands of time!  That's my goal.  I won't do bizarre stunts so that people will be talking about me.  But, if He calls me to do something unusual, I don't want the fear of man to hinder my obedience.  I would even be grateful to be a nameless mention, but my action remembered as was the Samaritan woman at the well or the sinful woman who anointed Jesus' feet.  Lord, give me words of Life!
When I have spoken His words to someone and they hear with their hearts, let it be His voice they hear, not mine.  Let my heart not be offended when they do not remember that I was the vessel for the delivery of the message.  May I be reminded that I prayed that all glory be to The Lord of Hosts!