Three funerals in ten days! I guess one should expect that in the later years of life. At least I have been in the pulpit and pew, and not in the casket. Or as one friend exclaimed, \u201cWe\u2019re still on the green side of the grass!\u201d The three deceased were very different in personalities and profession, in characteristics and calling. Yet there was a common thread in the three memorial services \u2013 all three were believers. It was affirmed that we knew where each of them now existed \u2013 heaven. It was further affirmed that the God who welcomed them into heaven, was the same God who offered comfort in our time of sorrow. Oh, there were tears and expressions of grief, because there had been a loss. But there was also laughter and celebration at each service. Paul writes that we grieve, but we do not grieve like those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). We grieve, and we celebrate, all at the same time. The seldom sung phrase of a popular praise song says, \u201cI find my strength, I find my hope, I find my help, in Christ alone.\u201d I couldn\u2019t help but wonder how it would have been had those three funerals in ten days, been for non-believers, with no hope of eternal reward or reunion. I\u2019ve been to an occasional one, such type of service, but not three in a row. How wonderful to live on the right side of hope, especially during days like these.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three funerals in ten days! I guess one should expect that in the later years of life. At least I have been in the pulpit and pew, and not in the casket. Or as one friend exclaimed, \u201cWe\u2019re still on the green side of the grass!\u201d The three deceased were very different in personalities and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}