You are making an impression. Whether you know it or not. When you meet people they have an impression of you. Whenever people hear you speak, they form their impression. When people read your social media posts, for good or for bad, people cultivate an opinion of you.
My dad was a builder. He built kitchen cabinets, remodeled rooms, shingled houses, and did concrete work. He was a meticulous craftsman who always did precision work.
In October 1962 he decided to pour a new cement walkway from our backdoor around the south side of the house leading toward the garage. On this beautiful October day, he mixed and poured the cement himself. I watched him and tried helping as much as I could. I watched him painstakingly finish the cement to look and perform just the way he wanted. It was flawless.
As soon as he had it completed, I ask him if I could put my handprint in the wet cement. On the north end of our home, there was a walkway leading to the public sidewalk. My sister and brother had their handprints in that cement. They are 6 and 8 years older than me. I didn’t have handprints in any cement and I envied them. Their handprints looked very nice. Not too deep. Perfectly place with names and dates written next to them that were obviously etched in by an adult. Probably our mom or dad. I imagine these beautiful handprints were what my dad was thinking of when he approved my request.
After telling me I could put my handprint in the cement, he then made one less-than-meticulous mistake. He walked away and left Freddy in charge of his own handprint. He went around to the other side of the house where he could use the garden hose to clean his trowels. So with his permission and without his supervision, I jammed my left hand down as hard as possible into the cement and recorded Oct. 1962 with my index finger.
My dad, being so thorough, took forever cleaning his cement tools. By the time he returned, the cement had cured too much for him to trowel out my handprint.
Did I ever make a big impression!
To say the least, my dad was not happy with my handiwork.
I don’t imagine you’ve messed up someone’s cement work lately. However, you will make an impression on someone today.
Whether we are joyful or complaining, encouraging or depressing, sympathetic or callous, thankful or unappreciative, humble or puffed up, we leave impressions on others with regularity.
One day I was walking through Home Depot and an employee there said, “Sir, you need to smile more.” Obviously, I wasn’t smiling. I’m sure I was focused on making certain I picked up everything that was on my mental list. But, I was thankful the employee said that to me because it reminded me that we’re always making an impression on someone. Whenever I go to Home Depot now, I try to consciously smile. And I am especially reminded to smile whenever I see that employee.
Recently, one of my grandsons said, “You never laugh.” I thought that can’t be true. I think I laugh quite a lot. I confirmed his announcement by asking him, “I never laugh?” He said, “No. I never see you laugh.” I thought that was a sad commentary of the impression he has of me. I quickly asked his older brother if he ever sees me laugh. He said, “Yeah! All the time!” So, I'm confused. I’m not sure what one is seeing and the other is not seeing. But I hope, I’m impressing all my grandkids as a person full of joy.
In the end, it’s not really important how they see me, so long as they see Jesus in me. You see, I’m representing Him. The Bible says, there are times to weep and times to laugh, times to love and times to hate, times to mourn and times to dance. And the challenge we have, at least the challenge I have, is to do all those things the way Jesus would do them. The impression I want to give is that Jesus is real, that He relates to all our needs, that He cares about the details of our lives, and that He is with us in good times and in bad times. I want to leave a good impression of Christ in the minds of others.
Over time, my dad grew accustomed to my sidewalk artwork. He walked over it a few times every day. Shoveled the snow from it in the winter. Mowed next to it in the summer. Then there came a day when he decided to tear out the old sidewalk because he had built a new garage. Guess what. He cut that piece of cement out and saved it. He used it as a landing for his four-person swing in the yard.
When I saw that, I excitedly said, “You saved my handprint!" He just smiled and said, “Yeah”. I think it ended up being a reminder to him of my less-than-perfect personality.
Years later, after my parents passed away, I loaded up that piece of cement and hauled it to our home here in Florida. It serves as a landing off of our back porch. It’s really very impressive! At least to me. When I look at it, I’m reminded of my dad. His meticulous work ethic. How I spoiled his masterpiece sidewalk. How he forgave me. How, in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to bust it up and throw it away.
And it reminds me how easy it is, for good or for bad, to make an impression.
Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did. 1 John 2:6
