Do you remember me?

I wonder if you have ever asked yourself, when you no longer walk this earth, what will you be remembered for?

This question came to me the other day. I was walking in our High Street and I passed by a woman I hadn’t seen for a number of years. She doesn’t know me, and I don’t know her. In fact the only reason I recognised her was because a number of years ago she used to park her car in a place I often passed.

In fact I can even remember what make and colour her car was. But the thing that makes me remember her more than anything else was the rather obscene sticker she had in the rear window of her car.

To look at her you would not think she would be the sort of woman that would have such a thing in her vehicle. It was her car, and due to the wording it was a female making the comment, not her boyfriend or husband.

How sad, I thought the other day, that as I saw her walk by, that the only memory that came back to me after all those years of not seeing her, was of that sticker in her rear window.

It got me thinking. What will I be remembered for? Indeed when people see me, what memory do I trigger in their minds?

In the work place am I known as the one that always has something negative to say? Am I known as the office gossip? Or is my name the first that comes to mind when a certain personality is being discussed?

We all have an idea of what we would like to be remembered for. Maybe it is for our sense of humour. Maybe we would like to think we are the first person people could come to if they had a problem, or had a need for a shoulder to cry on.

There could be any number of qualities that we would choose to have come to mind when our names crop in conversation. However the fact is that we will only be remembered by what people experienced when they were in our presence.

We can only give people one first impression, how important then that it is one that we would like to stick in their memory. It has been said that we may be the only gospel people read. I want people to see Jesus in my life. I am so aware that at times I can be such a poor reflection. John’s prayer in his letter was that he might decrease, so that Jesus might increase.

At the end of the day surely if we are to fill people with good memories of our life here on earth this can only be achieved if there is more of Jesus than me.