AT THE GRAVESIDE OF MY MOM

I was asked by my father to conduct the graveside service of my mom along with my nephew Joshua. I have been asked to reduce what I said to writing. For those familiar with me, my teaching and understanding of our lives before God, this will sound familiar:

Graveside Service; Greenwood Cemetery; December 31, 2011

We often quote as professing Christians Romans 8:28. For we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who know God, to those who are called according to His purposes.

This is a part of the ‘ALL THINGS’ and now we, mom’s family have the opportunity to find out if we believe this or just profess to believe it.

Will God make this work so that our lives are richer because this happened?

That is our big God. The danger is always not thinking big enough about His purposes and plans. This is indeed part of the all things He promises to cause to work for His good. For His purposes. So, of course we grieve, but we grieve not as others who have no hope.

This is not mom in this casket. It is her body. That does not mean it is insignificant. It is very significant because God will raise it up on the last day and glorify it. But it is not Mom. She was not her body and because she was not her body she did not pass out of existence.

She was more than her body and has but stepped in to her next phase of existence.

If that is true about mom then it is true about us. We are not our body.

We are more than our body.

If this is not mom, if she was not her body than who is she?

Mom is a spiritual being with an eternal destiny in God’s wonderfully created universe. Mom has but stepped in to her next phase of existence as this never ceasing spiritual being.

If that is true about mom, that it is also true about us.

Who are you? You are a spiritual being who will never stop existing with an eternal destiny in God’s created universe. That’s the glory of the human being God has created and made provisions for.

3 things I can tell you are true about mom.

God planned to bring her into existence. God invested His life in her. God likes her. Those three things.

If that is true about mom then it is also true about us.

God has planned to bring us into existence as never ceasing spiritual beings with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe. God has invested His life in us through Jesus Christ. And, He likes us. Not just loves us. He likes us.

But you get to choose whether this One who has invested in you is the real deal. Mom did.

PRAYER:

Father, God, Sovereign, Creator, Eternal One, He who is from everlasting to everlasting. We humble ourselves before you and know that you, with your abundant mercies, can assuage the grief that is very real. I pray for each here what mom had. A rich life of joy and power. Abundant in supernatural resources and a clear vision before each of us of the eternal significance of our life and work day by day. That each of us here would have a radiant life and a glorious death just as mom had.

Amen.