If you’ve read this column more than once, you probably know I’m a minister in real life. I enjoy being a minister, but if I tell you a secret, will you promise not to hold it against me? I really wanted to be a race car driver. That didn’t happen, but I haven’t given up hope completely: I’ve put in my request to be a race car driver in Heaven. (I also promise to take whatever assignment I’m given and be grateful.)
Ministry is a little like driving a race car. If you’re too cautious, you’re just another Sunday driver getting in the way. If you go too fast, you can crash and take others with you. One advantage racers have over ministers is that you know what position you’re in. In ministry, the race goes on indefinitely and it’s difficult to know how you’re doing. A mentor once told me the way to know if you’re a leader is to step out and see if anyone follows you. I guess that’s one way.
My ministry mettle has been tested lately. I’ve been called upon to conduct three funerals in three weeks. A funeral has to be one of the most difficult assignments in ministry. It’s bittersweet when a family entrusts you to officiate the funeral of a loved one—it is a funeral, after all, but it’s also an incredible privilege. A funeral thrusts you into the midst of what has to be one of life’s most dramatic human experiences. To be asked to represent the life of someone who has finished the race is serious stuff. Weddings and births come with rejoicing—funerals, not so much.
Last week during viewing hours I decided to sit down in the back of the room for a few moments and take a break from the crowd. Soon a well-dressed, elderly lady slumped into the settee beside me. She was emotionally spent and although I hadn’t yet met her, I recognized her as a matron of the family.
As she rested, her grief occasionally bubbled to the surface. Her gentle sobs migrated through the settee and I found myself caught up in her emotion. Eventually several of her friends took up a vigil around her, offering words of consolation and encouragement. I considered moving—I felt I was intruding—but just as I was about to excuse myself, the atmosphere changed. The support group parted like the Red Sea and a silver-haired woman, stooped with age pleading for everyone’s pardon, appeared before us. Laboring to support herself with a cane, the humbly dressed woman leaned over and embraced my sofa companion. I heard her whisper, “I don’t speak well… I don’t know the right thing to say… but I came here today to tell you I love you.”
I’m not sure the little woman even greeted anyone else there at the funeral home. It seemed she was focused on just one person, and as quickly as she appeared… she was gone.
There are moments in life when you recognize something special has just happened. The bent woman’s simple expression of love moved me to tears. I did my best to reach into the moment, straining to capture its depth and clarity. I’ve spent hours searching for just the right words to speak at a funeral, but I’d just been taken to school. I am grateful I was caught in that special moment between those two ladies.
That experience is similar to an intimate portion of Scripture found in the book of John. In that moment, the reader is sitting on the couch with the twelve Disciples as Jesus leans in and whispers…
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” John 15:9
That’s good stuff, isn’t it? I used to think nothing could be better than racing, but maybe racing’s not be all it’s cracked up to be.
Read Ron’s column, Simple Faith, each Saturday on the Faith Page (page 3) of the Lancaster Eagle Gazette, or visit www.lancastereaglegazette.com.