Let's Get Serious

From my journal of 1995:

When we were children, too small to expose to the sorrows and reality of funerals of any but the closest relatives, it was the older folks who were the mourners, the pall-bearers, the food-servers. The only funeral I remember going to as a small child was of my grandfather. I remember sitting with other grandchildren in the front row on folding chairs.

Today we attended two funerals. At 10:00 this morning we wept with friends and family of a six-day-old baby boy. We sorrowed for the loss of their infant son and grandson. A new life that was so shortly ended.

At 2:00 this afternoon we went to another church where we paid our respects (that's an old terminology with still current meaning) to a man who died at 52. We remembered him as a good and caring man, a family man, a courageous and quiet man who endured much personal physical disability, a good member of our community.

We heard two ministers present to those present the message that salvation (eternal life with God) is provided to us by God the Father through his son, Jesus Christ.

As we were sitting there in the hot summer warmth of the second service, I thought to myself, "We have become the old folks that we saw in our youth." We are now the mourners, the pall-bearers, the food-servers, and I think to myself that it is an honorable thing to be...members of a community struggling to see that even in the death of our loved ones, our Heavenly Father loves and comforts us.

We, each one of us, wait for that blessed hope of being with our Lord. In the meantime we comfort and are comforted with the Word of our Lord.
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