On This Day

On This Day

I really love Facebook.  Don’t you?  I mean, seriously, where else can we go to keep up with one another, find the best recipes, see pictures of near and far-off places, peoples, and cartoons/memes of any subject under the sun?  Not to mention the groups we can join (no membership fee required), the chat rooms we can converse in, and we also have a place to record our life events for all the world to see--or for just a few select ones, should that be our desire.

One of Facebook’s perks is often a double-edged sword for me.  It’s the feature known as “On This Day.”  For those not familiar with it, what it does is capture the moments from today’s date and highlights them for each year that one was on Facebook.  Oh the walks down Memory Lane I take each morning!  Some cause me to smile and reminisce over past glories while others make me melancholy for hurts that haven’t quite healed.  Some leave me laughing while others have me scratching my head.  Often, as today’s reflections were, I get a little of both.

Apparently in 2014, I wrote a blog about mistaken identity.  It was good (even if I do say so myself) and I recollected the feelings evoked as I read over the words about making a name for one’s self.  How I wanted to be known as a child of God and have His characteristics flow unmistakably through me!  I still do.  For you see, whether we personally can see them or if instead someone has to point them out to us, we all have a certain something that reminds folks of another soul.  Often I have been confused with someone else and in my blog I joked about a few of those times and concluded with this paragraph:

Long story short, each of us is labeled and/or associated with some type of person. Artists, jocks, families, funny people, or what have you: we all leave a mark. We all can be confused with another, as my sister Mary and I often were because we favored in looks. But the group I most want to be associated with, the Person I most want to be known as being related to, and the attributes I most wish to emulate are those of the family of God. I want to be instantly recognizable as a child of God, as one who smiles and offers acceptance, as one whose qualities could come no other way except by inheritance, by being born with the traits and elements of Jesus Christ. If I am to be confused with someone else, may it be as a person of light so that when the truth comes out and my real identity is known, I will have found favor with those whom I come in contact with, and may I leave a sweet savor behind so that even though I was not whom they thought, I was still someone they were glad they just met.

Imagine then, to my chagrin, as I scrolled further down the On This Day page and saw a notification I had posted about funeral arrangements for a man that for the life of me I could not remember whom he was.  I was appalled!  He passed seven years ago and sure, my memories aren’t what they used to be but still...Still, how could he have mattered so much then and not be even a faint memory now?  I internally shuddered.

In conclusion, I was able to investigate and discover who this man was (a former colleague of mine that at the time made a great impression on me and so many others).  However, to not know him now?  To not automatically have his face and personality come to mind saddened me.  I wondered about my own legacy.  Who will remember me when I am gone?  Who will smile longingly at my picture and recall the good times or will I just be the one who folks puzzle over as they repeat my name over and over, trying to jog some link to it?  Thankfully, once we all reach Glory, we won’t have temporary amnesia and we will know--we will know each other fully.  We will rejoice in the creatures God turned us into as we perhaps laugh over past times and see how He worked in us even then.  Even now.  

On this day, friends, may we shine for Jesus, love as He loves, and glorify Him above all.  That’s our purpose and reasonable sacrifice.  And the best part is that it’s not even a hard task to complete.  Let’s finish well, shall we?