Austin's Blog

I remember a former coworker and dear sister often saying of our children, “They are your legacy.” I distinctly recall her telling me this after Gabe was born. Dr. Mark Echols echoes this idea, writing, “…every father leaves the legacy of his children. It is your children who will carry your name and your lessons across generations (from your grandchildren and beyond).” What you do to, for, and within them carries on long after you’re gone.

The Bible says in Psalm 127:3, “Children are a heritage from the LORD…” They are a gift of grace, a blessing, and your heritage. But what, then, is to be said of those who bury their children? What becomes of their legacy? Who carries the family name when the only son lies beneath the earth, and you still walk above it?

I was recently encouraged by a few verses in Isaiah 56, where the Lord, through the prophet, brings comfort to the foreigner and the eunuch among His people. The prophet writes in verses 3-5:

“Let no foreigner who is bound to the LORD say, ‘The LORD will surely exclude me from his people.’
And let no eunuch complain, ‘I am only a dry tree.’
For this is what the LORD says:
‘To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose what pleases me
and hold fast to my covenant—
to them I will give within my temple and its walls
a memorial and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that will endure forever.’”

The Lord promises the childless and the dejected who honor Him a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters. He promises an everlasting name that will endure forever. What matters most is not the earthly legacy, but the one promised at the End of all things.

The reality is that, though my earthly legacy and name will fade with me, the promise of the Gospel is that the Lord will not just comfort His grieving people—He will restore to them what they have lost. That’s the way of resurrection. Tim Keller writes, “Resurrection is not just consolation—it is restoration. We get it all back—the love, the loved ones, the goods, the beauties of this life—but in new, unimaginable degrees of glory and joy and strength.”

Because of the Gospel, I’ll receive that everlasting name—and I’ll get my son back. J.R.R. Tolkien beautifully notes, “There is a place called ‘heaven’ where the good here unfinished is completed; and where the stories unwritten, and the hopes unfulfilled, are continued. We may laugh together yet…”

Indeed, we will laugh together again. And we will wear that everlasting name the Lord promises to His people.