{"id":2461,"date":"2018-08-02T16:53:05","date_gmt":"2018-08-02T20:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/soaringeagleradio.com\/?p=2461"},"modified":"2018-08-02T16:53:05","modified_gmt":"2018-08-02T20:53:05","slug":"the-legacy-we-leave-behind-rob-pue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/soaringeagleradio.com\/index.html\/health-wellness\/the-legacy-we-leave-behind-rob-pue\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Legacy We Leave Behind\u2019 – Rob Pue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This message is going to be a bit more personal than usual.\u00a0 You see, as I am about to turn fifty-three years old on August 21st, I confess, I am starting to feel my age and doing a bit more reflection lately.\u00a0 Emotionally and spiritually, I don\u2019t really \u201cfeel\u201d<\/em> fifty-three.\u00a0 In fact, it seems like only yesterday that I was a teenager or a young adult, vibrant and strong and full of ambition.\u00a0 I\u2019m still full of ambition and I will probably always be what people call a \u201cdriven\u201d person… but the reflection in the mirror is not what it used to be.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably around this time that a lot of people begin to think about their legacy…their accomplishments, and wonder if they have made any sort of positive difference in the world.\u00a0 Is the world better off for us having been here?\u00a0 Or has our existence been completely in vain?\u00a0 Have we touched any lives?\u00a0 Has our life had any meaning, or if we had never been born, would anyone have noticed?\u00a0 I don\u2019t mean to get off on any narcissistic tangent here, but I hope you\u2019ll indulge a few personal thoughts.<\/p>\n

One of my hobbies is studying our family history.\u00a0 I find it fascinating to learn about my ancestors, where they came from, what they did, what sort of legacy they left after they were gone.\u00a0 The Pue family comes from Northern Ireland.\u00a0 Our family had the first printing press, and thus the first newspaper ever published there, starting in the 1600s.\u00a0 In every generation since, there has always been at least one person working in newspaper publishing and at least one in full time Christian ministry.\u00a0 It seems in my generation, I have combined both endeavors into one.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t remember my grandfather; he died when I was just two years old, but he was a great man.\u00a0 His parents raised eight boys and three girls in a small Irish cottage near the seacoast.\u00a0 My grandfather\u2019s name was Alexander Pue, or \u201cAlec\u201d as he was called.\u00a0 He left home as a young man and traveled to Scotland, where he learned a trade as an architect, builder and stone cutter.\u00a0 I believe he was about 20 years old when he left the old country for good and emigrated to Canada… he never saw his mother again.\u00a0 He started a business there, and in 1910, at age 28, he married my grandmother.\u00a0 Several of his brothers also followed him to Canada.\u00a0 His sister Margaret came over in April of 1912.\u00a0 In her memoirs, she writes about sailing in the path where the Titanic disaster occurred just a week before, and seeing all the debris still floating in the water.\u00a0 Her ship stopped there, and they held a Christian\u00a0 memorial\u00a0 service\u00a0\u00a0 in honor of those who lost their lives on Titanic.<\/p>\n

Some time later, my grandparents moved to Chicago where my grandfather continued his business.\u00a0 He built many of the huge, ornate buildings in that city, many of them still standing, some historic landmarks.<\/p>\n

My Dad was born in August of 1925.\u00a0 He was four years old when the Great Depression hit.\u00a0 Though the country was in turmoil, my Grandfather, a devoted Christian, weathered the storm and kept food on the table for his family, even as a self-employed builder.\u00a0 I\u2019m blessed to have as keepsakes some of the tools he used in his business.\u00a0 My grandparents raised two daughters as well as my Dad, and sadly, a fourth child, my Dad\u2019s young brother, died in 1917 at just four months of age.\u00a0 Life must have been tough.\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine it.\u00a0 But they made it, as they kept God at the center of their family.\u00a0 My Grandfather insisted on it.<\/p>\n

He was also an Elder at Chicago\u2019s well known Moody Church for many years.\u00a0 He even preached the sermons there on occasion.\u00a0 My Dad attended there as a child and recalls when a young Billy Graham came to teach them as their youth pastor.\u00a0 Moody\u2019s Senior Pastor at the time was Dr. Harry Ironside, one of the most prolific Christian writers of the 20th Century, having published more than 80 books, a number of which are still in print.\u00a0 On my office wall, I have my Dad\u2019s Sunday School Diploma, dated 1939 and signed by Dr. H.A. Ironside.<\/p>\n

I never found out, until after my father\u2019s death, that he had never completed high school.\u00a0 Instead, at age 17, he joined the US Navy and went to fight in World War II in the South Pacific.\u00a0 When you watch the old documentaries and newsreels about the war, and see our servicemen on those ships, and see those planes on life-and-death missions…and the amphibious vehicles landing as the Philippines were liberated by the Allies in 1944… my Dad was actually there.\u00a0 He did that.<\/p>\n

I believe it was the highlight of his life, and of course, it would be.\u00a0 Few of us will ever be involved in anything quite that significant.<\/p>\n

As all Americans during that time worked together for the one common goal of freedom and liberty, and ending the bitter tyranny our enemies were bringing upon the whole world, my mother, too, joined in the efforts.\u00a0 Raised in a tiny, rural town in northern Wisconsin, she grew up studying in a one-room schoolhouse a mile or so down the road from her home.\u00a0 When she and her siblings did not walk to school, my grandpa would take them there in a horse-drawn wagon, or a sleigh in the winter.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I cannot even begin to imagine what that sort of life was like.\u00a0 She grew up in a time and place where electricity was not commonplace, going to a one-room schoolhouse, heated by a wood stove.\u00a0 Telephones were rare, radio was the tool for mass communication, if you were fortunate enough to have electricity.\u00a0 TVs did not exist.<\/p>\n

After leaving school, she went off to Chicago to join in the war effort, building war planes for McDonnell Douglas Corporation.\u00a0 When you see those old newsreels of ladies building airplanes for the war effort \u2014 (they called them \u201cRosie the Riveters\u201d) \u2014 my Mom was one of them.\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine the intensity of it all.\u00a0 The work must have been extremely hard, and the pay, not much.\u00a0 It took a toll on her later in life, as she ended up with severe hearing loss, undoubtedly caused by the work she did as a young lady, serving our country.<\/p>\n

My parents left Chicago with their four kids before I was born.\u00a0 Knowing nothing about country life or farming, my Dad bought a farm near Marshfield, Wisconsin and moved his family there.\u00a0 That\u2019s where I was born, and five years later, my youngest brother.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m blessed in that we have a few old silent movies of those days, and lots of pictures remain, showing what our family life was like.\u00a0 We think our winters now are harsh… but I remember snow storms on a regular basis that completely covered the cars and drifted as high as the garage rooftops.\u00a0 Our family farmed, but my Dad also took another job working for Sears as a repairman, where he was employed for more than 30 years.\u00a0 He had a hard time retiring.<\/p>\n

It was March of 2007 when my Dad had an episode with his heart and was having severe blood pressure issues.\u00a0 My sister and her husband came and took him in to the Emergency Room that night.\u00a0 He had no idea as he left home for the hospital, that he would never come home again.\u00a0 Complications happened.\u00a0 We can second-guess the doctors and the procedures that were done, but they can never be reversed.\u00a0 My Dad went from the hospital to a nursing home, then to Palliative Care… and four months after his visit to the ER, he passed away.\u00a0 My Mom changed dramatically and quickly after that.\u00a0 It was as if she suddenly realized her job on this earth was done, no one left to take care of, no more work to do… she followed him into eternity just four months later.<\/p>\n

We do not know the number of our days, none of us does.\u00a0 Our end can come quickly, like a thief in the night.\u00a0 Or we may experience some health issue that will come upon us suddenly, and nothing will ever be the same ever again… we, too, may one day go to the Emergency Room and never again return home.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know.\u00a0 God knows.<\/p>\n

And so as I grow older, my kids now all gone from home… one about to become a father to his SECOND child, (making ME a Grandfather again!!), and my two daughters now graduated from college, my life has changed as well.\u00a0 My wife and I are adjusting to this \u201cEmpty Nest\u201d business.\u00a0 We\u2019re doing fine, but it\u2019s a different life than when we had little ones at home every day.<\/p>\n

So I look back on my own life, and wonder what I\u2019ve accomplished.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never left my home and family and sailed to a new country by steamship, starting a new business and a new life in a foreign land.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t leave school at 17 years old and go off to fight for my country in wartime.\u00a0 I have survived many challenges, but I\u2019ve never lived through the Great Depression, or moved my family to a different state to live a lifestyle I\u2019ve never known before.\u00a0 And while I\u2019m honored to be working in full time ministry in service to the Lord, I\u2019ve never studied under the likes of Billy Graham or Dr. Ironside.<\/p>\n

I DID accomplish quite a bit as a young person.\u00a0 Even from the age of 12 I was very industrious… in fact, as I have lamented the fact that today\u2019s youth often seem to lack motivation and focus, my wife has informed me that, \u201cRob, you are not normal.\u00a0 It is not normal for a kid to do the things you did.\u00a0 You did things that most kids would never dream of attempting.\u201d <\/em>\u00a0I won\u2019t go into those accomplishments, but suffice to say, I probably wasn\u2019t normal, and probably still am not normal.\u00a0 I did start two businesses from scratch and (praise the Lord) they were successful and helpful to people;\u00a0 I did start a Christian newspaper in a place there wasn\u2019t one before, but then GOD did that, He just did it THROUGH me.\u00a0 But regardless, I still seem to fall way short of the accomplishments of those who came before me.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m very proud of my own kids too, the things they have and are accomplishing, the things they\u2019re doing with their lives.\u00a0 It\u2019s a different world now, with new challenges, things I never dealt with at their age.\u00a0 But I look back at my parents and grandparents in awe… truly, I don\u2019t think I could ever have done the things they did… and I wonder where our future generations are headed, given the way our country\u2019s leadership has changed our collective worldview.<\/p>\n

It seems the age of industriousness, innovation, and self responsibility is just a fading memory in the rearview mirror.\u00a0 I look at my grandfather, sailing across the Atlantic to a whole New World at 20 years of age, and wonder… what are 20 year-olds doing today?\u00a0 I think of my Dad, leaving the comfort of home and family and all he ever knew and going to fight a brutal enemy in a very foreign land, at 17 years of age… and I wonder, what are 17-year-old kids doing nowadays?\u00a0 Will any of us ever measure up to that Greatest Generation?<\/p>\n

Today, as our country is in decline, we are not united as a nation.\u00a0 Many of us support our enemies and defend their religion, while vilifying our allies and denigrating the one true God who created us and who provides all our needs every day.\u00a0 On our college campuses, privileged kids, many of whom have never known what it\u2019s like to work a day in their lives,\u00a0 sit under the tutelage of liberal teachers and professors with even Communistic worldviews, as they learn to hate their country.\u00a0 Most of us, even most Christians, no longer attend church or have any regular connection to a church home or family.\u00a0 And for that matter, I dare say that today, MOST of the churches have engaged in the Great Falling Away.\u00a0 We have cell phones, tablets and smart boxes with the world at our fingertips, but we can\u2019t carry on a human-being to human-being conversation anymore.\u00a0 We cannot even agree what Marriage is or what makes up a family.<\/p>\n

As I look around my community, and all across our state, I see there are job openings nearly everywhere.\u00a0 Even part time employees at a fast food place or gas station start out at $12 an hour.\u00a0 When I was a kid, $12 an hour was a dream \u2014 something I could only hope to achieve in my life…someday.\u00a0 But today, employers cannot find people to fill the jobs.\u00a0 And workers are in a tough situation too.\u00a0 Today in America, the official full time work week is 30 hours.\u00a0 Our government has so arranged things that if business owners have full time employees, they are penalized and regulated to the point that they cannot afford to keep them.\u00a0 So they keep their employees on as part-timers.<\/p>\n

On the employees\u2019 side of things, many survive only because they\u2019re able to receive subsidies and gifts from the government… but if they work more than 29 hours a week, or if they work two jobs equaling more than that, then the government considers them \u201ctoo wealthy\u201d to continue receiving aid.\u00a0 So the hardworking individual who wants to make something of himself and provide a better life for his family is relegated to a part time job and partial gifts from \u201cOn High.\u201d\u00a0 If he dare work more, assuming an employer would be willing to get taxed and regulated into bloody submission by the government by providing a full time job, then the poor soul actually LOSES\u00a0 money and his situation is worse for having a chance and wanting to work harder.\u00a0 We cannot win with these kinds of rules.\u00a0 But I digress…<\/p>\n

Each of us has but one life to live on this planet, and then we meet our Creator.\u00a0 I pray that each of you is prepared for that eventuality, for we never know when that day will come.\u00a0 It may even be today.\u00a0 But what will our legacy be, when our life here is over?\u00a0 Legacies are made moment by moment, by the little choices and decisions we make each day…. you can\u2019t throw together a \u201clegacy\u201d at the last minute and expect it to simply \u201clook good.\u201d\u00a0 A legacy is borne out of character, and something that can never be faked.<\/p>\n

So how will we be remembered?\u00a0 Are we doing our best to make the world a better place for us having been here?\u00a0 Are we putting God first in our lives, being good examples, role models, and providers for those whose lives the Lord has entrusted us to care for and nurture?\u00a0 Are we influencing the world around us, leading the lost and lonely back to God?\u00a0 Are we standing in the gap for the most helpless among us?\u00a0 Are we pushing back against the forces of the evil one?\u00a0\u00a0 Are we doing GOD\u2019s work as we live our lives each day?\u00a0 If we are, then the legacy we eventually leave behind will be truly something future generations can look back on with admiration, joy and love.\u00a0 There will be smiles, and people will be proud for having known us.\u00a0\u00a0 If we are not going about the Lord\u2019s work and living righteous, holy, admirable lives, our legacy will be quite different.<\/p>\n

We only get one chance here in this world, and then comes the judgement.\u00a0 A life is a terrible thing to waste, but how much more awful the wasting of a precious soul? How are you doing today?<\/p>\n

Audio CDs and transcripts of this message are available when you call me at Wisconsin Christian News, (715) 486-8066.\u00a0 Or email Rob@WisconsinChristianNews.com.\u00a0 Ask for message number 230.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2018 Rob Pue, Publisher<\/strong><\/p>\n

WISCONSIN CHRISTIAN NEWS<\/strong><\/p>\n

PO\u2008Box 756<\/strong><\/p>\n

Marshfield, WI\u00a0 54449<\/strong><\/p>\n

(715)\u2008486-8066<\/strong><\/p>\n

www.WisconsinChristianNews.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This message is going to be a bit more personal than usual.\u00a0 You see, as I am about to turn fifty-three years old on August 21st, I confess, I am starting to feel my age and doing a bit more reflection lately.\u00a0 Emotionally and spiritually, I don\u2019t really \u201cfeel\u201d fifty-three.\u00a0 In fact, it seems like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5521,"featured_media":2462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1684],"tags":[2241,2234,2235],"class_list":["post-2461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-wellness","tag-leaving-a-legacy","tag-rob-pue","tag-wisconsin-christian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/soaringeagleradio.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/legacyRGB.jpg?fit=3000%2C1669&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/soaringeagleradio.com\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/soaringeagleradio.com\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/soaringeagleradio.com\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soaringeagleradio.com\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soaringeagleradio.com\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/soaringeagleradio.com\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2463,"href":"https:\/\/soaringeagleradio.com\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461\/revisions\/2463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soaringeagleradio.com\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/soaringeagleradio.com\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soaringeagleradio.com\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soaringeagleradio.com\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}