A funeral

I went to a funeral today. Jerrol Harmon has achieved the deepest desire of his heart, and has gone home with God. Ron Stough did one of the most passionate funeral services I have ever seen him perform (and that's probably close to 100).

In the midst of the lesson, Ron said something that struck a chord with the quote from Eldredge (see Eldredge on Desire). He said that many people are born, go through life, and die; it is hard to think of anything good that has come from their lives. But in Jerrol's case, the difficulty was not in thinking of the good, but selecting which good things there was enough time to talk about. I think that this was because Jerrol lived life, not as an automaton, but as a person passionately seeking God. The desire of his heart was to get to heaven and take all of his family with him. At the same time, he knew that heaven could be had here, too, and sought, with God's good help, to create that for his family.

Each family member had written a note that Ron read out loud after the obituary. Those notes were so touching, so passionate, about the life of this godly man that the normally stoic Stough struggled fiercely to contain his emotion so as to be able to finish. This is a life that mattered, and still does. That is the difference that following the desires of your heart makes.