What Imprint Will I Leave?

Last night the country took a collective sigh of relief. The drama that started with the brutal Boston Marathon bombings took a significant step toward resolution with the arrest of who has come to be known as "suspect #2." Suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, is in serious condition and receiving treatment at a Boston hospital after being taken into custody by police Friday night. According to a CNN report, a homeowner in Watertown went outside after police said it was OK and he saw blood on his boat in the backyard. He lifted the cover and saw a man covered in blood and called police. Gunfire was exchanged. The city had shut down for the day as the hunt unfolded. A second suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, brother of the captured man, was killed Thursday night in an exchange of gunfire with law enforcement.

Family members of these two men, in the US and abroad, are facing tough questions about the brothers. One uncle spoke of the shame they have brought to their family. Their father seemed to be in denial. Friends spoke of how "normal" they seemed to those who knew them. Irregardless of what future investigation reveals, their legacy will always be one of awful terrorism. This causes me to consider, how will I be remembered long after my brief earth journey concludes?

That's a sobering question that may be asked a different way: What imprint will I leave long after I am gone? Ultimately, my influence will be determined by the quality of how I've invested myself in others. Reject the myth of the self-made man; each of us is a collage of influences. As M. G. Fray put it, "I cannot be 'just me.'" We are a divinely stirred mixture of others that imprint us with their own unique reflection of the Triune God. "There is a sense in which I have become like those who discipled me--I have become the people I have known and the (authors) I have studied and read" (M. G. Fray, "It Is Enough", 2000).

Anything good seen in me carefully resembles my mentors, both the ones I walked with and the ones that continue to mark me by written expression. There is really no such thing as 'Dane Fowlkes' except in that a name is given to denote this curious montage painted by Henry Fowlkes, Lois Fowlkes, Katie Richey, T. H. Harding, Bill Clark, Bill Malin, Donald Potts, Ira Cooke, Bud Fray, Al Fasol, Vance and Cherry Kirkpatrick, St. Francis, Brother Lawrence, Frank Laubach, Andrew Murray, Oswald Chambers, A. W. Tozer, A. B. Simpson, Henry Blackaby, Stanley Mwongella, and the list goes on.... There is no such thing as a self-made man.

What imprint will I leave on those who follow me?

(Dane Fowlkes, Pastor)