Your Legacy - Chapter One

YOUR LEGACY

The Greatest Gift

DR. JAMES DOBSON

New York Boston Nashville

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CHAPTER ONE

The First Generation

The year was 1862 and the Civil War was tearing our young

nation apart. Abraham Lincoln was the newly elected presi-

dent, and his Army of the Potomac was losing one battle after

another to General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army. 1 It was

a troubled time for a country that had begun with such promise.

On November 15 of that year, a baby boy was born to the

McCluskey family in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and they named

him George Washington in honor of the Father of our Country.

Mr. and Mrs. McCluskey were devout Christians and their son

was raised in the “fear and admonition of the Lord.”

George grew up and married Alice Turnell on November 14,

1886. They lived happily together for forty- nine years. He died

at seventy- two years of age. Alice lived to be ninety- eight. They

were to become my great- grandparents. He was a farmer on the

plains of Texas for many years until an itinerant minister came to

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2 YOUR LEGACY

their town. George went to hear him preach and had a dramatic

encounter with Jesus Christ. In days to come, he felt a defi nite

“call” to the ministry and spent the rest of his life working as an

evangelist and a pastor for numerous churches. “Winning people

to Christ” was his greatest passion. He was about six feet fi ve

inches tall, about the same height as Abraham Lincoln.

G. W. McCluskey died on November 14, 1935. His grand-

daughter became my mother, and she was two months pregnant

with me when her grandpa died. I regret that I never had an

opportunity to meet this good man. As you will soon under-

stand, I owe him so much!

Alice, who I knew as Nanny, helped to raise me. One of my

earliest memories was lying in a bassinet and looking up at the

woman who smiled down upon me. She wore a knitted cap that

had fuzzy balls dangling from yarn. Though it might be diffi cult

to believe, I have vague memories of reaching up from my tiny

crib and grasping the balls. I couldn’t have been more than fi fteen

months old. That introduction to Nanny was one of my earliest

glimmers of self- awareness, and from it came the beginnings of

my love for my great- grandmother. An even earlier memory was

of being held in someone’s arms, perhaps it was Nanny, who was

feeding me something that smelled like the baby food known

then as Pabulum. I still recall how it tasted. (Not very good.)

In years that followed, Nanny talked often to me about her

life with George. She never called him by his fi rst name, of

course. He was always referred to as “my husband,” or “your

great- grandfather.” Nanny told me fascinating stories about

their life in a cabin on the frontier and how “panthers” (moun-

tain lions) would prowl around at night trying to kill their

squealing pigs. My eyes must have been as big as saucers as the

imagery of those big cats became real.


THE FIRST GENERATION 3

Nanny also told me about the prayer life of her husband. For the

last several decades of his life, this patriarch of the family prayed

specifi cally for the spiritual welfare of his children and for those yet

to come. He devoted the hour from 11 a.m. to 12 noon every day

for this purpose. Toward the end of his life, he said the Lord had

made a very unusual promise to him. Reverend McCluskey had

been assured that every member of four generations of his fam-

ily would be Christians. We’ll see how that prophecy manifested

itself through the next eighty years and continues to this day.

What an incredible heritage has been handed down to our fam-

ily. It is remarkable to think that a man in his seventies, whom I

would not know until we get to heaven, was on his knees talking

to God about his progeny. Now my great- grandfather’s prayers

reach across four generations of time and infl uence our lives today.

In 2012, my son and daughter, Ryan and Danae, went with me

to fi nd the McCluskey gravesite for the fi rst time. We located it in

Placid, Texas, an hour’s drive from Austin. There are only thirty-

two people living in Placid today, most of them elderly. There

are no stores or businesses remaining in that place. An old brick

schoolhouse still stands where children once learned, laughed,

and played. It is decrepit and boarded up now. A small ramshackle

general store has survived but is locked up tight. This is where

people once bought groceries and played dominoes in the dis-

tant past. A rusted Conoco gasoline pump leans out front. We

worked our way around to the other side of what used to be a town

and found an abandoned cemetery. Eighteen members of the

McCluskey family are buried there. Among them are the graves

of my great- grandfather, George, and his wife, Alice (Nanny). His

tombstone is inscribed with the words, “George W. McCluskey.

He died as he lived— a Christian.” What an understatement!

We knelt there at the gravesite and each of us prayed because


4 YOUR LEGACY

it seemed like holy ground. Each of us thanked the Lord for

the infl uence of these godly ancestors and for the prayers of my

great- grandfather. As Danae was praying, a beautiful rainbow

appeared above us. Tears fl owed down her cheeks as she spoke

from her heart. A caretaker told us it is rare to see such a breath-

taking scene in that dry hill country. Ryan was the last to pray,

and he thanked the Lord for the four generations of our family

who have lived for Jesus Christ, each in their time. Ryan said

that George McCluskey would have wanted to know that he

and Danae are also serving Christ, and as such, are members of

the fi fth generation. Ryan and his wife, Laura, are teaching their

two children to love Jesus, too. They will soon take their places

as representatives of the sixth. How powerful are the prayers of

a man whose petitions have reached his children, grandchildren,

great- grandchildren, great- great- grandchildren, and great- great-

great- grandchildren. We are all benefi ciaries of his devotion.

Hebrews 12:1 tells us “we are surrounded by a great cloud

of witnesses.” I’ve always wondered who is in that cloud. Are

they the patriarchs of the Bible or the other saints who have

gone before, or perhaps angels who are looking down on us?

I don’t know. I’ll leave it to the theologians to interpret for us.

But I’d like to think the McCluskeys are watching from above.

Regardless, there’s one thing I know. We will see them again.

Have you thought about the legacy you want to leave to your

children and generations to come? That is a question every

Christian parent should consider. The implications of it are

breathtaking. If the objective of living is to pass on a heritage of

faith to those you love and to be with them throughout eternity,

I suggest that you be intentional about preparing for it now.

That is what I want to share with you in the pages to follow.


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Your Legacy - Chapter One