Who really is the faithful and discreet slave.......
Funeral experience
I attended my first "worldly" funeral last Saturday. Well my first since I learned TTATT (the truth about the truth). What an emotional day! Although it shouldn't have been any more emotional than your average news report, since I didn't know the person who died. The funeral was for my girlfriends' former student (my girlfriend is also "worldly"). Refreshing is the best way that I can describe my experience. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but what I experienced was more than I could have imagined even if I were Tim Burton's son in a field full of wild mushrooms. What I experienced was more thought provoking, more heartfelt, more soul searching, more muchier and yes even more "worldly". It was a celebration. Not a celebration of someone who died, it was a celebration of someone who lived! Someone who is still living, in the hearts and minds of everyone who knew her and surely still living in Gods memory. No matter our station in this world death is the one thing we all have in common. It's the great equalizer. It forces us to step back and examine our own lives. It conjures up all of our hopes, desires and doubts about what's in store for us when we die. None of us knows for certain what our afterlife will be like, but what we do know is that our current life can inspire others in ways that we may never realize. I didn't know Sarah Hopkins, who at the age of 21 died in a freak auto accident, but I do know that her life has inspired me. Having attended her funeral and witnessed the outpouring of love and support and many touching stories of her short life I have no doubt that she inspired many others as well.
Her grandfather who was at some point in his life a Baptist missionary in Africa gave the eulogy. It was to say the least refreshing. It was polar opposite of anything I've experienced as a born and bred Jehovah's Witness, fourth generation Jehovah's Witness / Bible Student. The difference was immediately evident. He was doing something that goes against everything I've been taught, he was speaking from the heart. Rather than following a figurative script of what we "know" happens when we die, he spoke of love and inspiration. Love and Inspiration from God, from Christ, from family, even from the hardships in his life. At one point he even admitted that he doesn't have all the answers. How refreshing to hear someone admit that! The one thing he was sure of though was the necessity and power of love. He quoted 1 Corinthians 13 verse 1 (If I speak with the ??tongues of men and of ??angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a ?clanging cymbal). I've heard noisy gongs my whole life. I feel fortunate to finally experience belief in God through the prism of love and humility rather than control and guilt. I finally partook of a meal prepared with love and faith. It truly was food at the proper time.
- (Matthew 24:45 “Who really is the faithful and discreet slave whom his master appointed over his domestics, to give them their food at the proper time?)