the future

If It Were My Funeral

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

I swiped the idea for this post from one I once posted to a blog I shut down ages ago. That post was prompted by hearing a minister say, at a funeral, “If _____ were here right now, he would say…”

Why, I wondered, should things I would say wait until my funeral to be said? So, if this were my funeral, I would say…

I hope you miss me, because that will mean I’ve touched your life, but you have no need to mourn. Finally, at last, I am where I’ve longed to be for so very long. I love you, and I’ve loved the life we’ve shared, but I love my God so much – so very much – more. Sometimes, especially in recent years, the homesickness for Heaven has been almost painful.

“I knew you before you were in your mother’s womb,” He says. I’ve believed this for years, and believed that I knew Him that early as well, that I was with Him in Heaven before ever being sent to Earth – and I’ve longed to go back. Paul said, “For me to die is gain.” YES! For the longest time, I’ve totally gotten what he meant by those words!

Loss is hard, and I get that too. “Losing” Mother was painful, but it helped when a friend pointed out that in reality she’d only moved away to a place I couldn’t go yet, that though we would be separated for a while I’d see her again when I made the same move. I’ve really been looking forward to seeing her again, and Daddy, and Granny and Grandaddy, and Mema and Pepa, and…

Now I ask you, please prepare to come meet us again too. If you’ve never accepted Jesus as your Savior, don’t know Him as your Lord, accept Him today. I look forward to visiting you in your mansion.

If it were my funeral, I think that’s pretty much what I would say.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

The Path

Tammy M Cardwell2 Comments
El Yungue Rain Forest, Puerto Rico
Copyright Clarissa Pardue 2014

Visit my Pintrest board and you’ll find a collection of pathways. I don’t even know how many I’ve pinned. I know only that I could easily pin hundreds more if I had time to sit and peruse the options.

Paths have always fascinated me. I look at a picture of a pathway that wanders off into the distance and the fairy tale loving part of me wonders, “What’s beyond that curve? What would I reach if I could follow it to the end?” I have this absurd sense that I, like Alice, could step through the frame and see.

It’s not just any paths I love, though. I appreciate well-manicured paths and paths that have been laid with stones or even railroad ties, but the ones I love best are truly natural paths, paths that speak of hundreds of footsteps (or hoof steps!) wearing down the grass over a period of time, paths that indicate something worth pursing, something that inexorably draws one forward to…

To what?

To the future, in a sense. To the unknown country that lies before us. I’ve never been one to settle for the here and now alone. No…I dream of what’s to come. I always have. Not that I let those dreams interfere with today, of course – usually – but rather that they drive me today in hopes of being ready to experience the best of tomorrow…and next week…and…

So, now that I think about it, I AM on one of those paths, and the photos I so delightedly collect also represent the various faces of the path I’m on. Interesting, how your thoughts can ramble in unexpected directions and you can see one thing in yourself while speaking of others.

What was it Bilbo said? “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

May your eyes be opened to your path, and may you be swept off your feet today.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C