Monumental Legacy vs. Micro-Moment Legacy
The flashing cursor. The tapping pencil. The blank page.
Like most parents, you want nothing more than to gather your thoughts and create a lasting legacy. Maybe through a letter filled with life-lessons, or a collection of precious memories, or a video capturing the stories you want your children to remember.
And when you are navigating the realities of a terminal illness, creating these tangible gifts of legacy can be especially meaningful. But they are far more than simple projects to complete. They are lasting expressions of love.
Thankfully, you don’t have to do it alone.
Through thoughtfully designed legacy-building opportunities, Inheritance of Hope walks alongside families, helping make the process of creating these legacy gifts accessible, personal and meaningful.
And while you are intentionally creating memories to be preserved, you are also creating something that will extend even beyond those tangible gifts. Something that doesn’t require a computer, or pencil or piece of paper.
And this raises a very important question:
When your children face the hardest moments in their lives, will they be sustained only by the things you intentionally left behind, or also by the person you chose to be in front of them?
Major milestones matter. Precious memories matter. Life-lessons matter. And preserving them creates beautiful gifts for your children.
But there is an equally powerful way to shape your children—one seemingly insignificant choice at a time during the ordinary routines of everyday life.
Two Ways to Move Forward
- A Monumental Legacy is a heartfelt, purposeful and profoundly loving effort to leave your children a tangible collection of stories, memories, and milestones to hold onto for years to come. Inheritance of Hope understands this deeply and offers many Monumental Legacy experiences and tools at no cost to families: Legacy Retreats, Legacy Videos, Legacy Songs, and Will Preparation.
- A Micro-Moment Legacy is an equally heartfelt, purposeful and loving endeavor. It is the quiet discipline to instill your faith, character and integrity into your children through the ordinary, routine interactions of life. Inheritance of Hope also supports Micro-Moment Legacy environments by offering Hope@Home Groups and local Hope Hubs.
Both of these are an extension of a parent’s sacrificial love. While Monumental Legacy gives your children something they can return to time and time again, Micro-Moment Legacy provides an opportunity to shape the people they are becoming.
For the next few moments, I want to draw your attention to those seemingly insignificant interactions that happen at the dinner table, in the car or throughout the ordinary routines of family life. Because your children are also learning something about how to live in those moments, even when you are not intentionally teaching them.
Micro-Moment Legacy is Caught, Not Just Taught
There is no formal textbook to master. No surprise tests, no pop quizzes, and definitely no fancy certificate of completion waiting at the end for you or your children. This particular type of legacy is far more formative: it is naturally absorbed by your children. They catch it through your words, responses, actions and habits within the normal, daily, unassuming atmosphere of home life.
Never underestimate these types of interactions. Combined, they create an enormous impact on your children which can be echoed in succeeding generations.
An example of Micro-Moment Legacy can be seen in the Apostle Paul’s second letter to his protégé, Timothy:
“I know how much you trust the Lord, just as your mother Eunice and your grandmother Lois do; and I feel sure you are still trusting him as much as ever.”
(2 Timothy 1:5)
Take a close look at the relationships and timeline of that household. Intentionality was lived out, starting first with the grandmother, flowing into the mother and finally into the life of Timothy. Those women didn’t hand him a library, they handed him a lifestyle.
As a parent, you are the most influential person shaping the worldview and spiritual formation of your children. Read that again. You matter more significantly than your child’s best friend, beloved teacher, extended family, or even the most gifted pastor. Why? Because while those well-meaning individuals can certainly teach truth, your children are watching you actually live truth.
Micro-Moment Legacy is Drilled, Not Just Built
There is something far weightier than good manners, polite habits, or positive character traits being passed along by Timothy’s mother and grandmother. There was a deliberate living out and passing along of the actual words and teachings of Jesus.
Read these words of Jesus,
“But all those who come and listen and obey me are like a man who builds a house on a strong foundation laid upon the underlying rock. When the floodwaters rise and break against the house, it stands firm, for it is strongly built. But those who listen and don’t obey are like a man who builds a house without a foundation. When the floods sweep down against that house, it crumbles into a heap of ruins.” (Luke 6:47-48)
The visible construction of a house is exciting to watch. Framing the sturdy walls, installing new windows, raising the roofline. Each step shows progress towards the final project.
But the most critical work remains entirely invisible, taking place before the framing ever begins. It is mundane work. It is time consuming. It is tiresome. But it is absolutely non-negotiable. It is the work of drilling down deep. Not into soft clay, not into loose dirt, but drilling directly into solid rock.
Imagine a laborer, chipping away at the stone, inch by tedious inch, day after day, regardless of the weather. This kind of work is boring to perform and equally boring to watch. Not much seems to be accomplished by those watching. But over time, this process is the sole reason the house stands immovable against adversity.
That is the exact blueprint of a Micro-Moment Legacy. A parent hears and reads words of Jesus, puts them into diligent practice, minute by minute, hour after hour, day after day. This work receives zero public praise. It is undoubtedly the toughest work you will ever do—but keeps your family’s foundation secure.
The Impact of Monumental Legacy and Micro-Moment Legacy
When Kristen and Deric Milligan co-founded Inheritance of Hope in 2007, they were very much aware of this tension. In 2003, at just thirty years of age, Kristen was diagnosed with a rare, terminal liver cancer. At the time, she and her husband were raising three small children (ages 4, 2 and 7 months). Her story of navigating the diagnosis, being a wife and mom can be found in her autobiography Consider It Pure Joy: A Mother’s Fears and God’s Gift of Peace.
While thousands of families have been positively impacted by Kristen’s Monumental Legacy (the national reach of Inheritance of Hope), she also realized the incredible value of Micro-Moment Legacy. During her ten-year journey after the diagnoses, she had to regularly commute to New York City for grueling rounds of chemotherapy, radiation and six surgeries.
But rather than leaving all the kids home every time, she turned her chemotherapy commutes into exclusive one-on-one “city dates” with her young children. They would walk the streets of New York together, look at the imposing buildings, explore the sites and make a ritual of finding a fun local bakery.
These ordinary dates were the slow, tedious “drilling down” where Kristen’s children “caught” her supernatural peace, joy and resilience based on the words of Jesus. Grandmother Lois, Mother Eunice and young mom Kristen all shared the same heartbeat—they were trying to make Him known to their children.
When you anchor yourself and your children exclusively in the words and finished work of Jesus Christ, you are building a legacy that the floodwaters of life cannot shake.
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Reflection Questions:
- What do you most want your children to remember about you, and what do you most want them to have learned from watching you live?
- What is one normal, unglamorous daily routine you already share with your child where they can “catch” your faith in Christ through words, attitudes or actions?
- What is the most essential truth about Jesus you want your children to carry with them into the hardest moments of their lives?
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Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father,
I rest in the Truth that You have already determined, written out and planned the exact number of my days on earth before I even took my first breath. While I don’t always see the big picture, You see it all clearly. I take great comfort in that Truth.
In the midst of all the legacy-building opportunities around me, would You point me to the small, everyday, ordinary moments which shape my children as I listen and obey the words of Jesus? More than anything I want them to have a firm foundation—one that is completely unshakeable through whatever storms they may face in life.
Please give me the strength to trust You with these Micro-Moments, so that my children may not only catch elements of my faith, but also catch the reality of Your grace and mercy.
Amen.
Brad Neese is a pastor, teacher and leader dedicated to aligning people to the truth, relevancy
and everyday implications of the Gospel. He graduated from Cedarville University and Dallas
Theological Seminary, spending over two decades shepherding congregations and developing
church leaders. He currently lives in Irmo, South Carolina, with his wife, Crystal, and their four
children.