How Do You Want To Be Remembered?

As a pastor, I officiated a number of weddings and funerals over the years. But, as much as I enjoyed helping couples start their married lives together, I actually preferred doing funerals.

I know, weird right?

But coming alongside people and families in their dark times is truly a privilege I never took lightly.

Last week, I went home to visit my mom, who is 81 and relatively healthy. On my way out of town, I visited my dad’s grave; something I haven’t done in a long time. In fact, I had to get assistance from the office to direct me to the proper marker.

It’s a modest stone, seemingly insignificant in the large cemetery. But the stone doesn’t reflect the life my dad lived or what he meant to those who knew him best. 26 years later, we still miss him.

But it got me thinking about my own life, as funerals and cemetery’s do.

Q. How Do I Want to Be Remembered?

That’s a good question and one I have pondered many times. In fact, over the past couple of years, as I wrote my latest book, I took the time to write my own eulogy.

I won’t share it all here but one thing I hope will be true of me is…

“Dan always believed that his purpose in life was to help others, discover theirs…”

In whatever I do, whether in pastoral ministry, life coaching, writing, being an entrepreneur or just being a father, husband and friend, I hope this is true of me. And knowing this, I can reverse engineer my life so that this is how it plays out.

That’s the power of looking ahead, or starting with the end in mind.

I don’t want my epitaph to read something like…

“He lived a safe life.” or