Legacies and reflections

The party is over, the food is mostly gone, over 100 people came to celebrate Luke's graduation from high school with us, some decorations are still left up, and I'm reflecting.

We had fun--things got a little hectic a few hours before the party, as we did last minute things like picking up food that we were initially told was not ready (look for the other slip, please), trying to encourage 14-year-old girls that they need to be available for me to instruct them for their next task (they said they were waiting for my next command, but were off in another part of the house), and doing last minute cleaning (some bathroom touch up needs to wait till the last minute).

During the party, we received the sad news that President Reagan was dying. In the busyness of the day, I didn't learn until church on Sunday that he had indeed passed away on June 5, the day before D-Day--the beginning of the end of World War II.

Even though I was more left-leaning in the earlier days of his presidency, I have come to respect the man and now wish I had voted for him. His actions shaped our country and the world, including our family, forever. I can't help but wonder what our own lives would have been like if he hadn't said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" (referring to the Berlin wall that separated communism from freedom).

The year the wall did come down, our daughter was born in Romania. Two days before her birth the Romanian communist dictator had been tried and executed, along with his tyrannical wife. Though our little girl was born into a new world, she was still trapped in an orphanage for more than the first year of her life, until the doors of those orphanages opened to all. With the help of my parents (who lived in Romania at the time), a wonderful Romanian friend, Mia, and prayers of many, Christina came to live with us in May of 1991.

Because communism fell, exchange students can freely come from those former soviet republics to experience life in an American home, and American students can travel and study there as well. Our own student, Inga, came from Moldova--a former Soviet state bordering Romania. Our lives have changed for the better through our relationship with her.

I wonder how many other people's lives are touched by the acts of this president of the past. Here are a couple of my favorite quotations of his--perhaps you've read this in the media or online as well:

"I believe that communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written."

-- Speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, March 1983.

"The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest."

-- On 40th anniversary of Normandy invasion, June 6, 1984.

There are many more, but perhaps you've given up reading this blog by now--it's longer than usual. I hope I can leave a small legacy in the life of my children--perhaps not one that will shape the lives of the world, but that will grow in the hearts of my teenagers, who are quickly approaching adulthood. I hope they can have the optimism of Reagan, and that, more importantly they seek God in all they do and live a life pleasing to him.

I close with my favorite quote of our former president, which he spoke after the space shuttle disaster. (He was quoting a poem of John Gillespie Magee.) Like those brave astronauts he spoke of on that day, Ronald Reagan has now too “slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.”

Till next time,


Suzi