The Legacy Of The Little People

“Soon after this, Rebekah’s old nurse, Deborah, died. She was buried beneath the oak tree in the valley below Bethel. Ever since, the tree has been called Allon-bacuth (which means ‘oak of weeping’).” (Gen 35:8)

Tucked into the grand, sweeping, story of Jacob and his family, the events of Shechem, and their return to Bethel, we find this peculiar note about the death of a woman named Deborah.

Deborah’s legacy is quite easy to over look as the story it is surrounded by is so large and compelling. We tend skip right over it, as we want to see what happens next with Jacob and his crazy, slightly dysfunctional family.

Side notes like these need to cause us to pause. We do not know anything about the death of Rebekah but the death and burial of her old nurse is recorded for all posterity. Why is this included?

Deborah was a simple woman who faithfully fulfilled her daily responsibility to care for Rebekah. She probably also cared for Jacob and Esau, but she is remembered as Rebekah’s nurse. She was a “little person” in a world of huge movers and shakers. She was the small fish in the big pond. Yet, she is memorialized here because her faithfulness to Rebekah impacted this family in such a way that her story was told to generation after generation after generation.

This is Deborah’s legacy.

In the midst of the all the grandiose, God pauses to highlight the every day faithfulness of one woman.

You and I probably identify more readily with Deborah than we do with Jacob or Rebekah, or any of the other major characters of the Old Testament.  I know I am a little person in the grand scheme of things. Most of us are not movers and shakers and policy makers.

We are wives, moms, sisters, and friends who get up each morning and do our very best to live out our God given purpose for our lives today. We grocery shop, change diapers, fix meals, run errands, go to work, make the bed, call a friend, write a note, pay the bills. What is noteworthy about any of that?

It’s easy to feel like we are insignificant in a huge story. We get lost in the mundane and discount our importance.

In Deborah, God assures us that our small, faithful actions do not go unnoticed. We are not insignificant to the Lord.

You are important.

What you do today to love on those in your life matters.

Your faithfulness in the small things is creating a legacy that will impact your families, friends, and communities for years, even generations, to come.

You may not know how.

You may not know when.

One day, with certainty, you will be remembered.

What will your legacy be?

Love & blessings,

Denise

#LivingHoly  #lifegivingwords