Clinging to your promises

Right before church services started Saturday night, I was in the office working on some filing. Our pastor on call came in and told me one of our members had collapsed while playing basketball at the local rec center. They were having trouble reviving him.

I whispered a quick prayer, and continued filing while he made more phone calls. I could hear whispering in the background. Fifteen minutes later I stood at his office door, and with a blank, stunned look on his face, he said, "He died."

Tom was 52 years old, fit and trim, a runner. We attended Sunday School with Tom and his wife, Barb for ten years, before we moved to Saturday services. She's left behind, along with two grown children, his parents, and siblings, and an entire church who loved him. When you leave this earth at 52 years of age, you leave behind many. I've heard Tom pray in Sunday School, for others who were going through difficult things, or just prayers of praise. We have no doubt where Tom is. That's what we hold to, but it doesn't make it easy.

Last week my calendar didn't have a funeral visitation and service in it. The ground outside is covered with a dusting of white, and it's all of five degrees. Tomorrow, the day of the funeral, is set to be just as cold. It's too cold for a funeral.

I was thinking recently that our country spends 1/12th or more of it's time marketing this thing we call Christmas. If we weren't all busy shopping and fussing and preparing right now our economy would likely be in an even more dire situation. It seems every other commercial is encouraging us to buy someone a car, wrap it up in a big red bow, as our country tries to keep the auto industry from going under.

I'm not playing an Ebeneezer Scrooge, suggesting we cut out all the fuss over Jesus' birthday. I don't know about anyone else, but for me it's easy to get busy with the preparations and miss the point. To spend time planning what gifts to give, and miss the gift that has been given. To actually complain about all those gifts for each other, without pausing to acknowledge we're blessed if our shopping list is long. Just last week Don and I visited a friend, 93 years old, with no family left. I'm pretty sure he'd be thankful if there was anyone still around who shared memories with him of days gone by. Days when he still had his youth, his hair and vitality, and dignity, rather than sitting confined and confused in a wheelchair thanks to a hip broken in a fall last week. At 93 he likely won't ever fully recover, and the cookies we took him were nibbled on only out of politeness. All he really wanted was the company of anybody who still cared enough to visit him. I'm not at all sure he remembered us, and I don't think it mattered.

Clearing a calendar for a visitation and funeral, regardless of what day it is, certainly brings one back to what is truly, truly important. Supporting Tom's wife, Barb, and their family, honoring his life - it will take precedence over anything else we had planned. We know where Tom is right now - and we're thankful for that assurance. It's still hard to say goodbye when it feels too soon.

"Lord, wrap your arms around Barb and her family, around Tom's kids and parents, and all those who loved him. Give them strength to get through these next few days., when it's Christmas all around us, and it's far too cold to be standing at a gravesite. Remind them you came to earth and overcame death, you gave Tom and the rest of us who believe, life everlasting. That's something to cling to when life is almost too much to bear. Thank you for the reminder to slow down, and hold closer those on my shopping list this year. Thank you for the reminder to tell my husband and children and parents how thankful I am they're still here with me. Amen."