Family reunions are always a mixture of ingredients…usually great food, some tender reunions, and much awkward silence with people you barely know. Every time I leave one, though, I’m struck by the power of legacy. On a late summer Sunday, we gathered with my wife’s father’s family and I thought about how a legacy is like a recipe.

There’s always great BBQ when my wife’s family gets together. In fact, the BBQ Sauce recipe is a long standing and closely guarded family secret. I knew I had made it when I was allowed to even lay eyes on that recipe for the first time.

It’s a secret primarily because it’s the backbone of Slim’s Deep South BBQ in Arcadia, Florida. Slim, or Ernest, was one of eight children raised in Arcadia. He was an uncle to my father-in-law. As the descendants of those original eight kids gathered in the town of the family’s origin on that late Summer Sunday afternoon, I was reminded of the incredible strength of faith that is my wife’s heritage. It’s a lot like a recipe.  

My teenaged kids didn’t want to go. I’m sure you can picture the conversation. “I don’t know these people.” “I don’t want to have to hear, look how big you’ve gotten all day!” Stuff like that.

But they went (as if there was ever an option).

Even though they definitely heard “I cant believe how big you are!” many, many times. They also heard some other things, too. They heard stories about a woman who was widowed and raised eight children. Stories about a woman who helped to raise her grandchildren. Stories about a a family where faith and loyalty and love were expected, modeled, and given freely. About a family who knew the pain of loss and how to overcome. About the importance of good food and family dinners. And respecting the bathroom schedule in a one bathroom house!

No family is perfect and there is dark as well as light in the stories that were told in the back room of Slim’s that afternoon. I’m sure there is more that I don’t know about. That’s okay, that’s part of the recipe too. Dark only makes the light shine that much brighter.

This is the legacy of my children’s great-great grandmother. And her son, their great-grandfather (whom they called Old Granddad) and their grandfather (whom they barely knew). But most importantly, it is the legacy that shaped their mother and therefore, is shaping them.

Theirs is a legacy of faith, hope, and love. It is a legacy of hard work. It is a legacy of great joy too. There was lots of laughter in that restaurant. There is always a lot of laughter in that family. Theirs is a legacy of strength. I have realized in a way I never have before, that strength, and particularly strong women, are on both sides of my wife’s family tree.

The resulting combination of ingredients is something to behold. Not unlike the BBQ sauce – a little sweet, a little spicy, and strong enough to stand on it’s own.

I guess, what I’m really trying to say is that I hope my children will one day be as grateful as I am for the unique mix of strength and tenderness that comes together in this woman I get to call wife and that they call mama. How I pray that generations from now,  her grandchildren will know and honor her the way Grandmother C was honored on a September Sunday.

“A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children…” Proverbs 13:22a