A Legacy that Matters

God makes every body matter.

This is one of the core legacies that I hope to pass on to my children. I can still remember kneeling next to a young Crow Indian child years ago, helping them to remember this verse: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are WONDERFUL, I know that full well.” (Psalm 139:14)

I even and especially remember the emphasis on “wonderful”.

It is a special thing to share such an uplifting truth with a child who is wearing the same clothes they have been wearing all week. A child who slept last night at their grandparent’s house, the night before that at a cousin’s, and the night before that at their friend’s house. The same child whose local school serves lunches throughout the summer because he and most of his friends will not, otherwise, have much to eat until the new school year begins.

That kid.

That child was/is a product of the deplorable poverty that many of our Native Americans live in…right here in our country. A poverty that was created many generations ago when that kid’s family ended up on land “reserved” for them. (The land that was theirs first).

Despite his poverty, despite his sad history, that kid is fearfully and wonderfully made. He matters.

God makes that kid matter because God created that kid. And God died for that little guy.

I think about that wonderful child, and many others whom I met on my two summers of Youthworks Missions out on the reservations of Montana. I think about those children every time my young kids come home from school full of “education” for me about what the Plymouth Indians were like.

My heart twinges when I hear some of the things my kids are learning. They are learning same thing, I imagine, as many kids are this time of year...broad-sweeping and mismatched details of several native cultures mixed in together as if the details, and perhaps even the people, don’t matter.

But they do matter. God makes everyone matter. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. His works are WONDERFUL. Every last detail of God’s works is wonderful indeed!

Perhaps it is time to take my little ones on a walk with me down memory lane. Time to pull out my photo albums and introduce them to Pony Boy, William, and the countless other children who grew up on proud stories of Buffalo Hunts, fiercely loyal family clans, and a society, however seemingly primitive, in which every body mattered.