I went to a funeral yesterday for Jon's uncle. It was his dad's sister's husband. We had not seen them in years but we felt we needed to go to support and show love to his aunt and his cousins and their kids. We went to the viewing before the funeral and because we are family, we stayed for the family prayer. They offered the prayer and prepared to close the casket. His close family, His wife and daughters and grandchildren, were having a very hard time and did not want to say goodbye and see that casket close. My heart ached for them as I had just been through this a few months ago with my own grandmother passing away.
I knew what some of these people were feeling: the granddaughter mourning for her beloved grandfather, the daughter mourning for her precious father. I had been in their shoes and tears filled my eyes especially as I understood some of the feelings that were going to come sweeping over them as that casket lid closed. I thought of how young his granddaughters were and how I was that young when I experienced my first funeral, that of another grandmother.
I remembered the feelings of finality and reality that hit me all at the same time like a slap in the face as that casket lid closed and how I completely and totally fell apart. Then I remembered the feeling of the Holy Ghost comforting me and testifying to me, at the young tender age of 12, that death is not the end. I will see my grandmother again.
As I pondered on these memories, shedding tears for these family members going through these same things and as my heart went out to these daughters saying goodbye to their father, yet not ready to let him go; I was filled with gratitude and amazement at my Heavenly Father's love and mercy for me. I was so grateful at that moment that my father's funeral was not the first funeral that I had experienced. I was in awe that my Heavenly Father would prepare me with the experiences that I had at my grandmother's funeral to help me get through the trial coming my way.
I no longer saw that experience of losing my grandmother, my father, and my grandfather as I did before. I used to think of that time as a trial that God had given me and my family. He took, in less than 2 years, time my grandmother, my father, and then my grandfather back to live with Him.
But what I didn't recognize was that with the loss and the feelings and the testimony born to me from the Holy Ghost when my grandmother died, the others were easier to bare and I'm grateful more than anything that he prepared me and not let my dad's death be the first one I experienced.
God has been merciful and kind to me and patient with me when am I so much less than He knows I can be and than He wants me to be. All my life He has been this way to me and I have been too stubborn or too prideful to see it. But today my heart is filled with gratitude for His tender mercies and for His Son, my and your Savior Jesus Christ whose atoning sacrifice saves us from temporal death (body separating from the spirit) and can save us from spiritual death (soul separated from God) as we keep His commandments.
Yes God is great, merciful, kind, patient and full of love for me and all of His children. In the name of Jesus Christ amen.
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