The first time I met Steve was at summer camp, 1970-something. He sported a curly-perm, stylish in the day. He was athletic, ready to compete with anyone for anything in any sport. He was passionate, zealous and so intense I wondered if he might explode. If there was any, and I mean any, fun going on, he would find it and get in the middle of it if he had not created it in the first place.

He was the kind of guy you would want on your side of everything. He possessed a warrior's heart and oozed confidence and courage. He was as comfortable in his own skin as anyone I've ever known. Stubborn and bullheaded, once he was on the scent of something, nothing could tear him away. I met him after Christ had gotten hold of him, and neither was letting go. He was an "every man's man," and a straight-shooter, he told it like it was, in his own particular vernacular.

"That joker," he'd say of some fellow he was trying to share Christ with, "he thinks he's fooling God, but he's got another thing comin'. God's fixin' to bodyslam him and I'll tell you something," he'd stare right at you and point with intensity, "it ain't gonna be pretty."

I was a 12-year-old mouse. Afraid of my own shadow, I was everything opposite of Steve. He was all man; I was all boy, and half the time felt like a girl. Steve blew into my life, and everyone's life, like a tornado — no, a tsunami — loud and washing everything with his bigger than life presence. The lion was almost more than this mouse could handle, but I loved it. It gave me hope that someday I could leave the rodents and join the den.

Over the years, Steve and I became friends, not really close, but good friends. He was 10 or so years older than I was, so we ran in different circles. Once I was out of college, he was my pastor for a short while, until the Lord moved him on to another church. Our paths crossed often, and on occasion I would seek his counsel on this thing or that. He was always eager to listen, to help, to offer any wisdom he could.

Time passed, and one day I bumped into him and he was as zealous as ever, still looking like he would pop at any moment. We talked and laughed and caught up. Through the conversation we discovered that he had purchased some land on a river not a mile from where my in-laws had just purchased land. Little weekend get-away places. We were excited that we'd be quasi-neighbors whenever our "river visits" coincided.

A new chapter opened in our relationship, and through the years we shared some great moments together at the river. It was there that Steve listened as I poured out my hurt about our miscarriage. It was there that we sat and talked on the river's edge, watching the water flow by, him still telling it like it is. It was there that he helped me process some of my Christian journey, to think through some significant things.

And it was there, almost a year ago, that Steve died.

He was at his place on the river, hosting a men's retreat, as he often did, and while cutting down a tree he was crushed. In an instant, all of that life, that passion, that zeal, was gone. When I received the phone call I was, of course, stunned. How could that happen? Nothing about Steve was fragile, yet, without even a fight, he vanished. He left this world to go to a place he had been talking about since I met him. Just. Like. That.

At Steve's funeral, there was standing room only in a sanctuary that held over a thousand. Some of us knew each other, but many of us didn't. We came from all over the country. Each of us had in some way been personally touched by Steve. How did he find the time? How did he manage to mean so much to so many people? All of us could stand and tell stories of our relationship with him. How is that possible?

Steve's pastor, his best friend, likened Steve to Phinehas, the Israelite priest whom God described as "as zealous as I am for my honor." Phinehas is known for having driven a spear into a couple as they brazenly and publicly flaunted their sexual immorality. If Steve was anything, he was zealous for his God, for God's truth, for Jesus.

As I write this a year later, I'm sitting at the kitchen table of the river home just a mile or so from Steve's. I went down there today, where Steve died. I don't know why I went there, just to feel I guess, to take in something, I don't know what. In my mind I could hear Steve's voice, his laugh, his unique way of turning a phrase. I remembered his words to me a few years before about our miscarriage, "If all this is true, if heaven is real — and I believe it is — then you will see your baby someday." I remembered the comfort of those words, the authenticity of them coming from him. I looked in his eyes, and I knew he knew I would see my baby. He just knew.

Steve was in his mid-50's when God called him home. That's a little over a decade away from me right now, and today as I stood there along the riverbank, a word leapt into my heart: Legacy. I wondered, what will be my legacy? A great question to ask, and one for which we expect to have a decent answer when we're old and gray. But given that we never know when all that will be left of us is a legacy, now — right now — is a good time to think about it. Because it isn't whether I'll leave a legacy — I undoubtedly will — it is what will the legacy be?

I realized that right now, and for all the years up until now, I am and have been leaving a legacy. I have been leaving stories behind, whether good or bad, empty or redeeming, and those will be my stories, unchangeable as the memories about me. I consider myself still young enough to see death as far off, and I hope it is, but the writing of my story is underway, the legacy is being etched every single day. And one day that will be all there is of me on this earth.

Standing on the river today, I was challenged by Steve's life, his legacy of authentic Christianity, and it suddenly dawned on me, he is still impacting my life through his legacy. That's the power of a life well-lived, a life devoted to Christ, the returns keep coming and coming even after we're gone. That's the life I want to live, the legacy I want to leave.

I walked back to my place, sat down at the kitchen table, turned on my computer, and wrote this. It's a gift from Steve to all of us.