What Imprint Will I Leave?

Reject the myth of the self-made man; each of us is a collage of influences. As M. G. Fray put it, "I cannot be 'just me.'" We are a divinely stirred mixture of others that imprint us with their own unique reflection of the Triune God. "There is a sense in which I have become like those who discipled me--I have become the people I have known and the (authors) I have studied and read" (M. G. Fray, "It Is Enough", 2000).

Anything good seen in me carefully resembles my mentors, both the ones I walked with and the ones that continue to mark me by written expression. There is really no such thing as 'Dane Fowlkes' except in that a name is given to denote this curious montage painted by Henry Fowlkes, Lois Fowlkes, Katie Richey, T. H. Harding, Bill Clark, Bill Malin, Donald Potts, Ira Cooke, Bud Fray, Al Fasol, Vance and Cherry Kirkpatrick, St. Francis, Brother Lawrence, Frank Laubach, Andrew Murray, Oswald Chambers, A. W. Tozer, A. B. Simpson, Henry Blackaby, Stanley Mwongella, and the list goes on.... There is no such thing as a self-made man.

What imprint will I leave on those who follow me?