The subject line made me freeze: “$100,000,000 inheritance from your aunt in Canada.”
For a moment, I stopped breathing. My heart leapt. I’d always daydreamed of a miracle like this—a forgotten relative, a sudden fortune, a prince on a white horse. But this was actually happening. I felt my eyes engorge with every word they read. In a matter of minutes, I’d planned out everything I would do once I received my dearly departed aunt’s tremendous bequest.
But, alas, my fantasy of a grand, material inheritance crumbled with each subsequent correspondence to the would be administrator. As you might expect, it turned out to be a scam. And in its place, a more profound belief began to emerge—a belief about my presumed birthright, the one I had been living all along.
It was this: My birthright was to die.
When bullets and grenades rained destruction on the land of my parents and grandparents, my native heritage was laid to waste among the innumerable casualties. I survived, but I was stripped of any material inheritance and any traditions that may have been passed down. For the last thirty-one years, I have lived banished to a new heritage of poverty and suffering—not only material, but also spiritual.
This year, as Heritage Day dawned, I allowed myself to ponder and account the balance of my heritage. I was left contemplating the immense trauma of all that was stolen and lost, which bankrupted my soul of all joy, peace, and right belief, and left me with melancholy, fear, and delusion. Over the years, I sought to replenish my soul with the sweet pleasures and comforts of the flesh, but my soul knew they were merely dregs. I longed for the overflow. Deluded and dejected, I resigned myself to a small life of quiet desperation, cowardice, and disobedience from my Maker’s first command: to live to the full the truly great life He designed for me to live.
You see, the war was never the origin of my fate. Instead, by my human nature, I was an object of wrath with a rebellious heart, exiled from my true country: the Kingdom of Righteousness, Peace, and Joy.
I stumbled about in the wilderness of that exile for several years, and though I reveled in its libations, their satisfaction was always so fleeting. I remained a soul a-miss and empty, overwhelmed by its unfulfilled longing. To be filled, I needed reinstatement. And this required me to willingly submit to a process that was no fun at all. Something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It meant undergoing a lifelong un-learning of all the self-conceit and self-will I’d inherited and trained myself in for years, and continually undergoing a kind of death.
It is through death—first of God’s Beloved Son, then mine, ongoing—that I gain the inheritance preserved for me since the beginning of time. A heritage of Christ’s righteousness, joyful hope, and a peace transcendent.
This glorious inheritance extends to all who wholeheartedly receive God’s indescribable Gift; to all who die to sin, and rise to live for righteousness, with peace and joy in the kingdom of His Beloved Son.
In the end, every earthly heritage decays. I know this fact brings no comfort. Being deprived of wonderful, bountiful, and glittering possessions is excruciating—especially when you see others lavishly abounding. It is no trivial thing to endure, let alone to overcome this wickedly treacherous plight. For a time, we may succumb to the despair that gradually sucks any glimmer of faith, hope, and joy from our miserable existence.
Having lived through and then been lifted from this valley of desolation, I would proclaim that no matter what terrible circumstances that find us stripped of physical valuables, we have the opportunity for restoration into a royal heritage. This new heritage, in the Kingdom of God’s Beloved Son, will know no end. I had no choice about my native heritage, nor had I any choice in its effacement. But thanks be to God and His Beloved Son, from whom I received the tremendous gift to choose to be reborn among a chosen race, of royal, sacred, and dearly beloved co-heirs with His Beloved Son, our Lord, our Master, our soon-coming King.
This is the real birthright: a truly great inner and outward life of righteousness, peace, and joy in abundance!
xoxo
Nimi
Kingdom Purposed Daughter 
Leave a comment