If you could sum up your life in a phrase, what would it be? And even more importantly, what would others say about you?
What we think of our lives is one thing. But our legacies depend on what others think of our lives. So, asking the question of what others would put on our gravestones is a true measure of the life we’ve lived.
So, what do you think will be put as an epitaph on your grave marker?
“She worried herself to death.”
“He knew loads of football stats, but no one really knew him.”
“Laid to rest with her best friend. Her iPhone.”
“Worked a lot. Drank a lot.”
The epitaphs we write for ourselves are not the work of a day or even a year. They’re the work of a lifetime.
So, here are some possible epitaphs I’d love to live well enough to deserve:
“Grace and truth met in him.”
“All who knew him knew themselves to be loved.”
“He showed us what love looks like.”
“He pointed us to God, not to himself.”
“We still see by the light he shined on us.”
“Always hopeful. Always kind.”
I don’t deserve any of those. But now that I know what I’m shooting for with my life — faith, hope, love, truth — the hard part begins: truly living a life defined by them.
Your turn. What would you have on your grave marker? And what will have to change for it to be true?