Sunday’s done!

Okay, not quite done, but close enough. Communion, a funeral, a send-off to China, a video, a graduation party, and a talent night for CDYC. It's been a big day. And God has been working.

People showed up for the funeral who i've not seen but thought about or who I have talked with. And what they all had in common was Ruth and her relationship with her God. Her husband of almost (one week short of) 49 years said that there were Muslim neighbors, agnostic doctors, friends from Catholic to Presbyterian to Missionary Church to whatever. But they (we) had all watched Ruth live and watched her die and knew that her life was touched by God.

Visiting her on the day before she died, in a coma with a son and a close friend watching, I had no desire to cry. As I am Mr/Pastor Tears, that was an interesting feeling. We talked about her living and her dying and there was a quiet complacency in the room, an awareness that she had nothing more to accomplish than waiting for the finishing touches on her new home.

We talked about the friends that she had made and the lives that she had shaped. I looked at her and had the sense that she wasn't waiting to see any of them. Any compliments that would come her way in glory, like the person received in "Thank You", Ruth would ignore just as she had ignored them in her life. What she was waiting for, what she was going to heaven for, was to see the God she had spent her whole life talking with. She saw His face in faith. She felt His hand and heard His voice in her heart many times in her threescore and ten, but soon, soon there would be no more need for faith.

It was time to leave a week ago today, and finally I started to choke up. As a pastor on a call to hospice, you always have to pray. And I had no idea how to talk to God about this woman who had lived with God. I had no words, I couldn't find the place to start. I felt completely irrelevant to her spiritual life. I felt like a …. I'm not sure what the comparison is.

So I said something, asked for strength for her family and friends, thanked God for her life, and walked out with her son.

Yesterday was a long day with lots of transitions. But for Ruth, the intercessor and encourager and mother and friend, she got the best transition of all. And we all are wondering where the prayer shawl will fall. Who gets the double portion?

I wonder how worthy Elisha felt?