In My Heart

We were met this week with some sad news about a dear church friend who passed away. George may have been elderly, he may have had heart problems which were impacting his life quite heavily, but death always comes as a shock, doesn't it? You can prepare for a funeral, and have living arrangements for a surviving spouse in place, but you can never prepare one for the grief and loneliness that accompanies this most unwelcome of all experiences.

Dean and I both went to the visitation at the funeral home last night. Even though Dean has steered clear of our growing home church the last couple of years due to his dementia, I felt this might be a "safe place" for him to see some of his friends and express his grief to Virginia, since Dean knew the couple so well.

And he did a fair job of greeting every person there, even though he "recognized" many people he had never met, and couldn't remember the names of some of our closest friends. The highlight though was when he took Virginia's hand and asked to pray for her. It was a touching prayer and reminded me of the one he had long-distance on the phone with our sister-in-law after the sudden death of Dean's brother a couple of years ago.

Each death and funeral I attend is a painful reminder of what it will be like to lose Dean someday. I think what I will miss most will be his prayers. They may appear on the surface to be long and repetitive, but I try to listen closely, because he always surprises me with their depth.

The other night, for instance, he started out with the Lord's Prayer, but he made one slight change. He said, "...Thy will be done, in my heart as it is in heaven..." I'm sure this was not a mistake.

Help me, Lord, to accept in my heart whatever Your will demands.