08 Mar 05 What We Leave Behind

What does it say that my first blog would be about a funeral?

I was sitting on the bench listening to the people sharing and was struck by two things:

First, one of the family members talked about going through the things of the dearly departed and I’m thinking, “yikes, I’d better go clean out my desk!” This particular person, the one who died, was following a daily reading plan and her marker had been left in 1 Corinthians 13 — the place she would have been on the reading plan the day before she died. Not a bad place to end — certainly a great place for the rest of us to start.

Second, such great things were said about this life-long believer in Jesus Christ. Such nice things were expressed and it made me realize that those who speak at a time like this do not necessarily speak their own words. They are speaking the words of the one who died. They are speaking the life of the one who died. We decide what will be said about us when that time comes by how we treat others, by how we live.

Perhaps we should pay more attention to what we leave behind.