I wrote this last year (2019) on Heritage day and as I was reminded of it and reading through it again today, I thought it was worth digging it out the archives and sharing again – with a few edits 😉 So enjoy!
24 September. Heritage Day in South Africa, the beautiful country where myself and my husband were born, where my daughter was born and where I am staying.
As I was considering what this day means to me, to my family, I found myself searching for the definition of heritage and was drawn to these two definitions.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines heritage as “features belonging to the culture of a particular society, such as traditions, languages, or buildings, that were created in the past and still have historical importance:”
The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary pens heritage as “things such as works of art, cultural achievements and customs that have been passed on from earlier generations:”
My mind began to wander further and I journeyed down the lane of African traditions and cultural achievements, the 11 languages that are now official languages of my nation, the buildings and monuments which were built and established over decades and also some which have been destroyed during the last few years. “What is my heritage? What is my cultural heritage?” I asked myself.
My journey turned down the lane of my family heritage. I was born in Pretoria, Gauteng, and so by the time my family moved to Durban, KwaZulu Natal, I was bilingual and able to communicate in both English and Afrikaans. My parents came from two diverse families and carried the heritage of those cultures, languages and traditions into my life. I married a man of German heritage, whose father was Greek. My daughter now attends the Deutsche Schule Durban (German School) due to the heritage her dad carries and is passing onto her for her future. And so just these lanes of language heritage are part of my history and have historical importance which I can choose to shape and change my future, or I can choose to forget them, destroy them and change the course of history.
My mind continued to journey and the lane of my spiritual heritage drew me to ponder, think, discover and explore what this looks like. Jen Wilkin writes, ” As Christians, we possess a distinct spiritual family history, one traceable not through a DNA test but through an ancient text. Tucked into the Book of Genesis is the story of our forebears, carefully preserved for us so that we might understand who we are and why we’re here. But it does something more significant than just orient us to our past. It orients us to the God who has sovereignly shaped our past, present and future. It tells us not just where we come from, but whose we are – the ransomed children of a covenant-keeping, faithful God.”
Our identity is wrapped up in the text of the written Word and therefore in the Lord Jesus Christ, as John 1:1 records ” and the Word was God.” and secures us not only in the history of where we come from, but in the knowledge of who we are and whose we are. I don’t know about you, but that makes celebrating my heritage a joyous occasion!
Jen goes on to say ” I want to suggest that we return to the written word with a fresh set of eyes, with an eagerness worthy of its value. These stories offer us so much more than a quick morality lesson or a passing glimpse of an ancient culture. According to the apostle Paul, “For whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that we may have hope through endurance and through the encouragement from the scriptures” (Rom 15:4) The history of Genesis, our history as the children of God, is intended to instruct, strengthen, encourage, and give us hope.” ” We must step into the earliest pages of our Bibles – not as detached spectators of someone else’s family history, but as avid learners of our own.”
Our Spiritual Heritage lies in the pages of The Written Word, The Living Word, The Bible. This Book is accessible, readable, beneficial, relevant and life changing.
As we look to our future, as South Africans, as Christians, we have a living hope to cling to, a living word to stand on, and an inheritance to walk into. “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” encourages Psalm 16:6.
In Christ we have a heritage and a past, a home and a present, and an inheritance and future. May we hold fast to Him as we stand firm in Him and live for Him. Hope you’ve all had a Happy Heritage Day!
hope of heart 