Leaving a “Legacy” Feels Overwhelming

There are some people who are intentional about leading. They love leadership. They listen to podcasts, read books, and go to conferences, all to be come a better leader.

They love words like “legacy” and “heritage.”
Words like that seem overwhelming to me. I get that they are important, but I’m not sure how I feel about the pressure of leaving a “great legacy.”.

You see, I’m not perfect.
I’m quirky.
I’m grumpy.
And I walk through this life doing some things well, and other things not.

So I’m not sure how confident I am about leading anyone.
I don’t really know where I’m going.
I’m trying to figure out a lot of things—and most of the time I’m second-guessing every decision.

Also, I’m at a point in parenting when “follow the leader” is not a game my boys still want to play..

I have three sons. Two are teenagers, and one is a young adult in his early twenties..
I know my boys love me, but these young men are ready to forge their own paths.
They don’t want to follow in my footsteps right now. They want to take their own steps.

They are in the “I don’t want to be like dad” phase.
I get it. I think every person goes through at time of distancing and separation from their parents as they transition into being an adult.
I know I did.

But as I got older, I realized how much my dad knew.
I gained perspective on why he made some of the decisions he did.
I appreciated who he was.

When people said, “You’re a lot like your dad,” it was no longer an uncomfortable mantel someone was trying to place on me.
It started to fit. And it felt good.
Because I realized who I was, and if part of me reflected my father, that was a good thing.

Maybe my boys will arrive at that point. But maybe not.
I see things in them that are so unique from who I am, and I love how different they are from me.

And while I want to leave a positive imprint on their lives, for me, “legacy” isn’t about them reflecting me.
It’s about pointing them to the one who made them, and allowing them to become who God made them to be me.

Legacy isn’t about highlighting what I’ve done.
It’s about elevating what God is doing in their lives.
And that feels like a lot less pressure.

My legacy is that my children know they have an imperfect dad.
A dad who overreacts to some things.
A dad who not only wants to protect them (sometimes too much), but also wants to raise them to be responsible.
A dad who love superheroes, but is certainly not built like one.
A dad who loves them imperfectly but shows them a God who loves them perfectly.

I don’t want my boys to follow me. I want them to follow God.
I’ll feel like I’ve done well if I didn’t cause them to stumble too much in their journey. I know I will make mistakes, and they will need to choose their own path, but my biggest hope for the future is that they will have a better understanding of who God is by how much I have loved them every single day.