The Dash Matters!

www.dashpoemmovie.com

A friend recently shared with me an email with the following link. It provided a great reminder (for me) about how we should live our lives. I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about the movie. However, I do want to spend some time today thinking about the "dash."

The dash, for those of you wondering, is the thing that separates our date of birth from our date of death. The dash is what happens in the middle. Ask yourself the question: What will people remember about me? For most of us who visit a burial place we may look at the header on a tombstone and think about how long a person lived (Oh, they were 80 years old...)but those dates are not the true representation of who that person was. The Dash Matters! When all is said and done, when I take my last breath, the size of my house and the type of car I drove is not going to matter. What will matter is how I lived my life.

I was fortunate enough in life to have a great-grandfather who was a preacher. When I think about his "dash" it always brings great joy to me. I am reminded of a man who was very short in stature but large in life. I'm reminded of a man who had a wonderful laugh and a great love for God and family. I can still picture him sitting beside the kitchen table with these huge sunglasses on (cataract glasses) and his head leaned back in laughter. I can still see him riding his old tractor around until his health would not allow. And I can still remember the day that we buried him. I still remember the falling snow as the white hertz pulled onto the cemtary. It was a beautiful ending to a beautiful life. What I'm trying to say is that his "dash" made a difference in my life.

A couple of years after his death I made a visit to his grave. I was standing in front of his tombstone talking as if he could hear every word. I told him that I loved and missed him, and I told him how much he meant to me. I also stood there in tears as I shared my own calling into the gospel ministry. I can only imagine what it would have been like to share it with him face to face. Once when my brother and I were very small our family visited him at his church. I want you to picture two little twin boys standing on the stage in their button up shirts, dress pants and vests singing "Jesus Loves Me." He was so proud. I'd like to think that he would have had that same smile and tears streaming down his face as we embraced my call and each other.

I hope that my life will be remembered the same way for others. I hope that people will see in my life a love for God and family, a zeal to share the faith that God has given me, and the type of character that they want to see lived out in themselves. I realize that my "dash" will be full of mistakes, however, I hope that in the end people will remember me as someone who honored God.

How will people remember you. I had a professor in school who often said, "It's now how you start that matters but how you finish what you started." I did not know my great-grandfather before he was saved and called. He was always the preacher grandpa. But in the end, I don't think it would have mattered. What mattered most what how he finished his life. A life that was dedicated to God and to his family. Yes...the Dash Matters!

May you live a life that is filled with the excitement and joy that God intends. May your dash, as well as mine, give people an opportunity to laugh and give thanks to God.