Reflecting on Life and Legacy: How ‘A Christmas Carol’ Inspires Us to Change Our Lives and Shape Our Eternities

During this time of year, I enjoy listening to several Christmas audiobooks. I find it captivating when voice actors bring stories to life. This month, I listened to Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Dickens, known as the father of Christmas, wrote it as a moral tale about a man with a cold and unfeeling heart.

Ebenezer Scrooge showed no compassion or joy. He mistreated his clerk, whose family struggled to survive, especially with a child who had a potentially fatal condition. Scrooge’s greed pushed away his limited family and alienated others.

The story asks, “Can a person change their life?”

For Dickens, the answer requires introspection, which comes in the form of three spirits appearing on a frosty Christmas Eve. Each spirit shows Scrooge the events of his life. He revisits a lonely and rejected childhood, witnesses the struggles of Bob Cratchett’s family, and stands before a bed with a sheet covering a deceased figure. Scrooge doesn’t need to ask who it is.

After awakening, Scrooge undergoes a transformation. He becomes generous and loving.

Although Dickens never directly poses the question to readers, it lingers in the ending like the London fog mixed with soot.

What would it take for you to change your life?

And the answer remains the same. You must reflect on life from the end, looking backward.

For us, the question becomes:

How do you live today in the shadow of eternity?

This question holds a spiritual dimension. Despite skeptics dismissing it, the reality of God’s eternity and judgment exists. One day, no one will be able to deny it. They will have to confront it.

However, let me propose another eternity as well. It is the impact we leave on others’ lives.

We shape children, cultivate or damage friendships, and overlook or bless strangers. What actions do we take today that will affect them after we are gone from this earth?

Will those in pain remember the help they received from a stranger? Will a child attend your funeral because of the impact you had on their parents?

We structure each day based on how we want our future to be. The most miserable individuals sow seeds of misery each day. Twisted souls speak harsh words and leave lasting negative impressions on others.

But kind-hearted souls make others say, “I am glad I knew them.”

Winston Churchill once observed:

A great person has the power to make lasting impressions on those they meet. They also handle matters in a way that continuously impacts future events.

So today, whose life will be better because they knew you?

Alfred Nobel experienced the power of his own death in his life.

Nobel made a fortune from his invention, dynamite, which forever changed warfare. No longer did one person die; dynamite could kill multitudes.

In 1888, Nobel’s brother passed away from leukemia. However, a newspaper mistakenly published Alfred’s obituary, with the headline reading, “Merchant of Death Is Dead.”

Shocked by this epitaph, Nobel sought to rectify it with the remainder of his life. He used his fortune to establish a series of prizes for sciences and arts. One prize became synonymous with his name—the Nobel Prize for Peace.

If someone were to write your obituary today, what would it say? You now have the power to live the life you want to be remembered for.

Dickens wrote about Scrooge. What story might he write about you?