What Type of Person Do I Desire To Be Free Printable ⋆ A Delightful Glow

What type of person do I desire to be?

This question has bounced around my brain quite a bit in the last few months. Honestly, it’s a topic that’s been on my radar for years now. I’ve been more specifically and intentionally putting it into words recently.

I believe in living with intention. I also don’t always do so well at practicing this. I believe in aspiring and aiming. I also fall far short much more often than I would choose.

An older gentleman I remember from my childhood passed away recently. I didn’t know his family extremely well, yet I felt sadness when my mother texted me of his passing. I pictured him and his wife and “Kindness” was the first word that popped into my head. They both had a gracious manner. They had a calmness about them, coupled with a sparkle in their eyes and easy smiles. They were enjoyable and friendly and even as a child, these aspects of their character came through to me. On the flip side, I remember another couple who were a bit loud, a bit brash, with a bracing sharpness to them. I remember feeling so, so, so grateful they were not my parents.

I write this not to ridicule, nor to pedestal anyone. Rather, to reflect on the impression I’m impressing on others.

For the fact is, we all influence other people and create a persona of some type in their perception of us. We do misjudge and we are misjudged at times. Yet, overall, our choices and actions and homes and activities tell a story about us.

These reflections muddling about in my brain, brought the two questions on this printable to the forefront.

What Type of Person Do I Desire to Be?

And to further break it down and point my aim, I asked myself,

“What would I want people to remember about me when I die?”

Then, this mama, decided it would be a good project for her teens. I believe it benefits any of us, at any age, to consider character questions from time to time. I believe that the younger we are when consider the character we want to shape in our lives, the more enriched we will be as people, and in our lives. I feel like my teens are much better thinkers than I was at their age and I praise God for His grace upon them.

All this thinking and project-ing commenced into sitting down at my computer, clicking up the Canva website and creating a printable sheet. It felt like ten was a good number. I’m sure I’m influenced by my lists of ten in my Ten on Tuesday posts. 🙂 All the same, ten felt right. Not completely overpowering, but not a dash-off-three-things-and-run either. I wanted it to nudge us into a bit of pondering and probing.

I like lists and I like thinking intentionally and it is something I’ve done for a lot of years now. {I haven’t always. Not with as much depth anyway.} Thus, filling out this list wasn’t hard for me and it was fun.
What I didn’t think about as I made this assessment of myself, was what wasn’t going to show up on the list.

As I thought about what I might someone to remember about me, whether it’s my son or daughter, my grandchild or the cheerful postal worker, here’s a few things that didn’t show up on my list.

She kept her house immaculately clean. {This isn’t true, so no one would ever remember this anyway.} 😉
She was wonderful at home decor.
She loved to bake.
She liked to write.
She really loved to take pictures.
She always had a stack of books she was reading.
She sure enjoyed a delicious coffee drink.
Red raspberries were her favorite.
She loved a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

This list could go on and on. And there’s nothing wrong with the things on this list. Many of them are things I love and describe me. Many of them might be mentioned by the people who love me best. These just weren’t the things that popped up when I stopped to consider what I would personally want people to remember.

Funny thing to me too………the things on this list are things that feel important as I’m living and breathing. I do deeply appreciate it when a friend brings me a bouquet of flowers. I do enjoy it when someone asks me for a book recommendation. It means the world to me when people tell me they were blessed by my writing or words. I love having a catalog of pictures of moments in our lives.

But in the end, that isn’t all I want to show up about me.

The items that did make my list?! Well, they’re soul and character, more than any tangible activity or detail of life.

Here’s a few…………..

My No. 1 ~ I would want people to say, “She loved Jesus.” And if that’s all they said or remembered, it would be more than enough. I didn’t make my list flowery. It’s very simple and concise. I didn’t go into a big faith statement. That’s not my way. If it is yours, go for it!!!! Make your list reflect your heart and soul. I simply jotted in black across the No. 1 line, “She loved Jesus.”
I wrote two words on line No. 2. “She Smiled.”
“She was kind.”
“She was gracious to others.”
“She stood for what she believed in.”
“She loved to bring beauty to the world.”

Simple things, really. This is how my list went. I doubled back on some and filled in beside or above the sentence already there. I added “She rejoiced for others” above “She was encouraging.” “She lived with integrity” jotted above line 4.

I admit. The idea for this simple list, made me think deeper than I was expecting it to. That may sound a bit silly, as you skim over my simple answers. They don’t look all that deep and they aren’t written in big words with hard meanings. I’ll tell you though, the words may be simple, but the living them out in the day-to-mundane-day, in the midst of busy and bustle, pressure and prone-to-selfishness, makes them much more challenging than we might first imagine.