Celebration

My brother and I went to a funeral a couple of weeks ago for my great uncle. It was a "nice" funeral and we actually decided we liked some of the things they did. Like putting an embroidered bass (fish) jumping out of water on the inside of the coffin lid. You might laugh, but I kind've thought that was a nice, HONEST touch. He loved fishing. Why not put that on there for him to stare at for all of eternity?

So that got me thinkin'- what would my husband put on the inside of my coffin lid? A picture of my kids? Something to do with bootcamp.....what dumbbells embroidered? Maybe a picture of Blue Bell Pralines N Cream ice cream or a box of sweetarts? Cuz these are all of the things I love........... well, hopefully not.

I think I'd like a Bible verse embroidered on the inside of my coffin lid. Not that i will be looking at it. But for all of the people at my funeral to see. I even know what verse: Matthew 5:16 "Let your light shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your FATHER in heaven." Hopefully all of the people at my funeral will read that verse and agree that they could see Christ in my life. It was evident.....by my words and actions.

I also want upbeat, happy music. This should be a celebration if we really, truly believe we are going to spend ETERNITY with OUR LORD AND SAVIOR!!! My husband can play one tear-jerker - "I can only imagine" and the rest need to be songs like, "Strong Tower", "Revelation", "Born Again", etc. Oh, maybe two tear-jerkers cuz I love David Crowder's "Never let Go".

Anyways, then I want the Gospel told. If there is anyone at my funeral that doesn't know Christ as their personal Savior, I want them to accept HIM right then and there. Wouldn't that be awesome?

So, I'm not planning on dying soon or anything. I just want to make sure that when I do, my funeral is not some morbid, depressing affair. I want everyone there to know that I am with My Jesus.

Oh, and one last thing. Do it as cheaply as possible. We just finished Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. I do not want my funeral to cause any debt!!!

Lady with one earring

I was sitting in church Sunday morning listening to the campus pastor start his service when my attention was drawn to the lady sitting two rows in front of me. You know how you scan the rows all around you and check out who's in church? Anyways, I realized that this lady (guessing from the back of her head she was about 40-something.....short hair and sitting next to a teenage daughter) was missing an earring. She had one large black hoop in one ear and nothing in the other. For some reason I could not let this go. And look, here I am 5 days later blogging about it.
I started wondering what happened to the other earring. Did she just forget to ever put it in? Did she put it in but forget the back so then it fell out unbeknownst to her? Did she put both in but then talk on the phone so she pulled the one out and forgot to put it back in? Was it her cell phone? So was the earring in the car or at home? Maybe the earring was on the sidewalk on the way into church? Whew.......lots of possibilities about where the missing earring was and how it went missing.

Anyways, this led me into thinking about how we are all just like that lady with her missing earring. We all get ready and try to look "put together", but we are really not. Put together, I mean. Everyone has something "not perfect" in their life. It might look perfect on the outside, but I guarantee it is not.

And you know, I think Church is one of the worst places where everyone tries to act "put together". You know Sunday morning my four children fought in the car the whole way to church over the seating arrangement in our suburban. You know, a REALLY IMPORTANT thing to fight over.....It ended with Chris getting frustrated and yelling at "the instigator" of the fight. I tried to calm everyone down (I'm putting that in here because it is usu. opposite - I'm usu. yelling and Chris is calming). Anyways, we get out of the car, all paste on our smiles, and tell everyone "Good Morning". Nobody knows that World War 3 was just going on in our suburban. Then, we sit in an awesome service, pick up the kiddos from their classes, get back in the suburban and guess what? Yep, you guessed it. The STUPID FIGHT RESUMED! So, this time normalcy reigned and I was the one yelling.

So, I guess my point of this whole thing is that we are all missing an earring. It's just that
some of us are more open and honest about these "missing earrings" than others, but nobody has it all together. Thank goodness that Christ loves us no matter what.