Crossing Point
ONE of the greatest privileges of being a minister is journeying with people through the various ages and stages of life.
When I’m asked what my favourite parts of being a minister are, people are often surprised that close to the top is taking funerals.
It is an immense privilege to stand alongside a grieving family and to put together a service to remember and celebrate the life of the loved one they have lost, and to declare to those gathered that the Christian faith affirms that in Jesus, death never has the final word.
Not many of us like to talk about it, but some day all of us will die.
When we do, it is our hope that the people we know and love will gather together to remember us how we want to be remembered.
The trouble is that, when our time comes to cross the threshold of this life into the next, those who are tasked with planning our funeral don’t always remember everything we want them to remember about us and we aren’t around anymore to tell them.
It’s not their fault: grieving is hard and it often clouds our memory. Since we can’t shout from the heavens and tell them ‘I hated that hymn’, the best thing we can do is to prepare them while we’re still here.
I have a document that I use with grieving families to help spark memories of their loved one that asks questions about a person’s life, their work, their family life, their hobbies, but also about what things mattered most to them, what they were most grateful for.
I’ve been using it for some years now but it occurred to me that these are questions and conversations we should be having with our loved ones well before they go.
How often do we hear stories from our relatives and friends and think ‘we should really write that down’ but never do?
Do we ever take a moment to sit down with them and ask: what are you most proud of ?
Or, how do you want to be remembered when your time comes?
And what about you? What do you want to be remembered about you when your time comes to cross the threshold between this life and the next? Have you told anyone or written it down?
Let me encourage you today to not put it off any longer: have these conversations, tell people your wishes, write it down.
It’s one final gift you can give to the people you love and it may even teach them something about you they never knew.