LIFE CYCLES & IMPRINTS

Celebration of Life for Bertie Koenig (November 11^th, 2017)

LIFE CYCLES & IMPRINTS

I’d like to a share short message with you as we remember the life of Bertie Koenig. My sister and I will remember her as “Mom”, and our kids will remember her as Grandma. Everyone who has known her will remember her from a unique perspective. She left a significant and meaningful imprint in the lives of many people. There is something marvelous about creation: everything has a life cycle, and will leave imprints around it in some form or another.

Life cycles: it’s about beginnings, growth, transitions, endings.

Consider how obvious it is in your hair. It has a beginning when you are an infant, it grows for years, then it transitions to white, or simply ends by falling out. Everywhere you look you see this life cycle pattern: in people, plants, relationships, jobs, companies, civilizations, the weather, even stars and planets experience this marvel… called a Life Cycle. 

Bertie’s life, my mom, experienced this marvelous life cycle. During her past couple years, she and I would sometimes have interesting conversations about our Creator, what is our soul, what’s doing the thinking within our body and when we leave our body. We sometimes would talk about the challenges our bodies are experiencing as they age, and of course everyday stuff of life too.

Her background is Christian and her faith gave her the confidence to look forward to her future, apart from her body, which I refer to as her “Vehicle”, the one she used while on this Earth. Consider this analogy.

I like to refer to our soul as the “Operator” that resides within our body I call the “Vehicle”. 

If you drove an older worn-out looking car with tinted windows through a neighborhood, people would see a vehicle drive by, have their first impressions of the car, and assume certain things about the “operator” inside the car that they can’t see.  Now imagine you were able to change cars a couple of streets over.

If you then drove a new Corvette with tinted windows through this same neighborhood, the same people are likely to have a different assumption about you as the “operator” driving that newer “vehicle”.  

But, you are the same operator inside.

People only see your "vehicle". 

Even though your own body- “vehicle” is aging and wearing out, I propose to you---

the “operator” inside you IS THE person, not the “vehicle” you are using…and you are timeless.

This is why when you are 50 you can recall experiences when you were 15 with so much clarity as if it happened a short time ago. It was you then, it is you now. Your soul hasn’t aged like your body has. 

Mom told me when she looked in the mirror, she saw an old person, but she didn’t feel old inside.

Your aging “vehicle” is only the appearance of you, but the “operator” inside you is the actual person. 

Again, I propose to you, your “operator” is timeless because it comes from the Creator, who IS timeless. Your temporary body, or “vehicle”, essentially comes from the dust of this Earth, and returns to the dust of the Earth again, just as Billions of people do.

The person we know as Bertie, or in my case, as Mom, is the person we are remembering. The family members here, and her long-time friends, have watched the aging process of her body, her “vehicle”. 

And now, she has stepped out of her vehicle and returned into the hands of her Creator. Her body will return back to the “dust” as we say.

There are a some very important things we can learn from her life.

She left a timeless imprint on all our lives in some way, great or small, direct or indirect. This is why when people we know personally, or anyone we’ve been influenced by, passes onward, we feel some degree of loss (even people you only know of through the media etc). 

Somehow we feel connected to them. It’s because they have left some form of an imprint in our lives. It is a mystery, but it is true.

Is is important to understand:

You are intentionally, or unintentionally, leaving imprints around you and in other people’s lives (positive or negative). 

 

There’s another important understanding:

Learn from your experiences, both positive and negative, and from the daily lessons in life. 

Every day you have the privilege and opportunity to develop your “operator”,
that timeless person who you truly are.

Life is not about your performance, or appearance, or how you are judged by other people.

(Some of us need to embrace this so we can move forward).

Your Creator understands the challenges you are facing.

You are NOT left alone. 
You are here with your Creator for a duration of time. 

Part of your purpose is to experience this life, learn from it, develop yourself as a person & leave influential imprints. 

Each day of our life cycle, we choose if we’re going to improve the person within us, or not improve. Both responses will influence others.

Someday, each one of us will transition out of our bodies and return back “into the hands of our Creator” when our own “vehicles” finish functioning. 

Most importantly: someday, our Creator will require each of us to be responsible for how we developed ourselves and left our imprints!

 

We remember Bertie's life who is no longer physically here, but she has left timeless imprints around her.

We are celebrating the life cycle of the person we know as Bertie, as Mom, and as Grandma. 

In some way, this is her final gift to you, her final imprint.

My mom was learning how to live by these following truths:

1-Love your Creator. 

2-Look beyond the vehicle of your body. Patiently love and forgive your operator inside you…the wonderful gift God has given to you.

3-Look beyond the vehicle you perceive as another person. With wisdom, treat the operator in them the same way you want to be treated. 

In other words: In your Life Cycle,

Have an Attitude of Gratitude

for your Creator,

for Yourself, 

and for Others. 

Your imprinting left behind can provide an opportunity for others to develop & go do the same; influencing generations.