Legacy

Well my blog fans, I apologize for being late on my post. I altered my week and took Thursday off and came to work on Friday. It seems to be okay though, because our Thursday numbers were down drastically yesterday. For some reason this week Tuesday was, by far, our biggest day.

We are coming close to a milestone. If you look at the top of the screen right now, you can see our page views tracker. As I am writing this the tracker is at 459. I want to know who 500 is. If you are reading this right now and the tracker says 500 please email me at jblewett@northidgehc.com so that we can let everyone know who the lucky person is.

I have something that I want to share with you this week that I found very interesting. I was googling my name to see how some of my Internet ventures were coming up. Do you know what I found? I found my long lost relative! I don't know how this man is related to me, but I am convinced that he is. Take a look at this picture of Jimmy Blewett and see if you can find some resemblance.

I have never met anyone in the world that has the same last name as I do that is not related to me. I have done searches on my last name and I found it to be a fairly common name in Europe and such places, but not here in the US. Do you want to know what is really cool? He is a race car driver!

He was born in 1980 which only puts him 2 years older than me and he lives in New Jersey. My dad's side of the family is from Syracuse, NY. Here's another thing about him... he's really good! The reason I found out about him, is that he just won another race this weekend, and now he is leading his particular racing organization. I do not know a lot about racing, but here are some things that I found in his biography.

-- 2-time Wall Modified champion (2001-02)-- 2-time Garden State Classic winner (2002-03)-- SST B Modified Chemung 100 lap winner-- Wall R.O.C. Tour Sunoco 150 winner-- 2 Riverhead Modified wins -- 2-time Turkey Derby winner

I don't know what that means but it sounds impressive. Here is a picture of the car he drives.

But if that fact that I have a man sharing my name who is a successful New Jersey race car driver is not enough... he has a brother. His brother is also a race car driver and owns a used car parts shop called John Blewett, Inc. Now it would be really eerie if this guys name was Mike or Mikey or Hunter or whatever alias my brother is using these days, but his name was John. And, in the spirit of giving out very personal information over the World Wide Web my mom lost a boy and his name was John. He was born around the same year as this John. So, here's the picture of John Blewett III and if you have ever met my brother Mikey you would see a few similarities there too.

So anyhow there is my interesting discovery for the week, and I will keep you up to date with anything that may transpire from this situation. Here is what I am hoping will happen... the power of this now very famous blog will spread all the way to New Jersey and the Blewetts will find out about this Youth Pastor in Florida who shares the same name and a few facial similarities with their race car driver Jimmy. I will let you know when I receive the phone call.

Onto some more spiritual things. This past weekend Heather and I attended a marriage conference called Weekend to Remember http://www.familylife.com/conferences/marriage.asp and it was held in West Palm Beach. (So for those of you that thought I skipped church to go to the Bucs game... you were wrong.) At this conference we learned a lot of interesting things. We learned the proper way to communicate, we learned about the way God views marriage as opposed to how the world views marriage, and we learned about how differences in expectations will lead to conflict.

The part that I wanted to share with you though was told to me at the part of the conference where the men and women split up. The men were learning about what it means to be a Godly father. The talk was very interesting and I am sure it was a lot of stuff that I will remember when I do become a father. I wanted to relay to you how this speaker ended his time with us men, because it relates a lot with the 30 days post that I talked about last week.

The speaker told the story of being woken up in the middle of night at his home in Atlanta with the news that his nephew was dead. His nephew was 23 years old and was apparently shot while trying to rob a convenience store. This was shocking news to the speaker because he felt like this man was not the type of guy who would do something like that.

As information started to unravel, the speaker had found out that his nephew had just found out that he was going to be a father. In a moment of foolishness decided that he needed some way to get Christmas money for his new baby and the baby's mother. Even though this man had never been in trouble before and would never do something so extreme by his nature alone, he will now be forever linked to a convenience store robbery and he will never be remembered as anything more than a thug.

The sad part is that one day his baby will be old enough to ask questions. And inevitably the question will be raised to his mother, "Mom, why don't I have a daddy?" Can you imagine the anguish that that mother will feel at that moment, and can you imagine the feelings of abandonment and confusion that that kid will have to grow up with. The speaker acknowledged the fact that when his nephew died, he left behind a terrible legacy. A legacy that will haunt his kid forever. All for a few dollars.

The question was then posed: If you left this Earth right now, what would be your legacy? Parents, would your legacy be as a loving parent? Christians, will your legacy be as a faithful Christian? What will you do today to ensure that you leave a lasting legacy? What will do today to make sure that everyone around knows that you love and care for them?

What's your legacy?