FINGERPRINTS ON A LIFE

 

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A few years ago, a friend of mine bought some surplus red bricks which had been used to pave a city street in central Florida, and upon which traffic had passed for the better part of a century.

After Jeff picked up the load of bricks, and got them home, he noticed fingerprints on the surface of a few of them; the imbedded fingerprints of the brick maker which had been left there while the bricks were still wet.

Who can say? Perhaps the fingerprints were placed there on purpose; very much like you or I might leave our handprints in a newly laid sidewalk or driveway. More likely, however, that the fingerprints were left there as the result of having been picked up and transferred to the kiln in which they were cured.

And very reminiscent of the fingerprints in the bricks, I have a photo of my dad taken during WWII. In the photo, my 16 year old father poses with a hula girl in Hawaii. And on one side of the color photo is a distinguishable fingerprint; no doubt left there when the picture was still wet. I have wondered if the fingerprint belongs to the photographer or my father. (I suppose I will never know, as my dad went on to his reward ten years ago).

However, the stories, above, immediately bring to mind the fingerprints of God on our lives, and our resulting fingerprints on the lives of our fellow human beings.

As a pastoral counselor and mentor, I have often used the foregoing metaphor to express our impact on those who will, no doubt, outlive us, and their impact on others God sets in their pathway, and their impact on others, and so forth and so on.

As one of my former interns finished her mentoring session one day, and she stood to leave, Rita spontaneously said,

"Dr. Bill, I don't want to disappoint you. I'll go for you when you can no longer go. I'll speak for you when you can no longer speak. I'll reach, teach and keep people in your name long after you have gone on to your reward." 

Fingerprints on a life. It works like that. One life touching another touching another touching another. My mission statement is 

"My students are living messages to a time that I will never see."

I have often shared a conviction with my interns and counseling clients:

"I am hopeful my message will go on making a difference in lives a thousand years from today. Of course, they will have long since forgotten my name. But that's okay... as long as they remember my message."

How privileged we are to leave our fingerprints on lives.

by William McDonald, PhD