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Thursday, May 2, 2013

Comfort and Wakes

This evening I had the opportunity to visit the local funeral home to perform a wake service. I always find this to be a special moment in my ministry. I head off to the home knowing that people will be there dealing with a variety of emotional issues. Anger. Sadness. Emptiness. Doubt. Fear. And somehow, I hope, that I can alleviate those feelings if only for the moments that I let the Spirit work through me. These are emotionally gratifying times. Knowing that I can bring comfort to those who may be at a low point in life or a crossroad of doubt in their faith.
  These a special moments to me because I never dealt well with death while growing up. Perhaps it was fear. Or perhaps it was the voices I was hearing as I had told my mother while a child (see previous post). Either way, I feared going to see a dead body and my parents, knowing this fact, shielded me from death altogether. I did not attend a wake until my grandmother died while I was in high school, and that's a pretty long time to avoid dealing with death. It was just that much harder.
  I have, however, come to understand this ending of life in a better way. I o longer am disturbed by it and I  certainly do not fear my own demise. I have accepted the idea of a life beyond this and absolutely know that it exists. In my prayers and visions, I have seen it and those who have gone before me have been telling me this for years, I was just never ready to hear it until now.
  So with great comfort, I bring God's message to those who need to hear it. And the events of the voices and visions? Well I don't use them in the service, they have no place there. But they do exist. In the heart of my preaching and praying for these families.

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