Text of Message Shared at Funeral of Three Brothers, ages 16, 13, and 10

Note: This is the text of a message I shared at the recent funerals of three brothers who were killed in a car accident in the community where I pastor. Jamie, age 16, Carson, age 13, and Christian, age 10, were a gift to all who knew them. I offer this here as a word of hope and comfort to all who need it. 

BELIEVING WITH HOPE

We are, each one of us, at every moment, a heartbeat away from death.

It seems that for all of us here today that of all deaths, that of a teenager or a child appears the most unnatural and hardest to bear. We expect the old to die. When those who are old die, it is always difficult, but perhaps it comes as no surprise. But the death of a teenager or a child is a different matter. Life with its beauty, wonder, and potential lies ahead for them. Death comes as a cruel thief when it strikes down the young.

In a way that is different from any other relationship, a child is bone of his parents’ bone and flesh of their flesh. When a child dies, part of the parent dies too and is buried. When we lose a child, the effect is widespread. It not only deeply reaches into the fabric and heart of loving and caring parents, it also involves siblings, grandparents, friends and family, in incredibly unique ways. The specter of death reveals our relationships to be our most precious possession in life.

So, I want to begin today by naming some realities about this day and the circumstances in which we gather:

• The hurt is deeper than the deepest hurt; 
• The tears seem endless;
• The pain feels unbearable;
• There is a sense of powerlessness that is with each of  us;
• We are trying to let go when what we really want to do is to hold on;
• We have a sense of physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion that overwhelms, confuses us and just doesn’t make sense.
• And we ask, Why? How come? What for? – And we are prone to say, It is not fair.

I am not telling you anything you do not already know and feel. But I also want to tell us all something else. While the things I just named are very real, please know today that they are NOT the final or ultimate reality. There is a dimension yet unknown to any of us, but very real to Jamie, Carson, and Christian - a life that brings the promise of Christ and with it the promise of resurrection.

I will tell you that there is no answer that can I can give or that you can give that can fill an empty mother’s heart or end a father’s longing or restore a brother to you. We come here today, not for answers but for comfort, for faith, for hope, and for love – and for a promise.

I am reminded of the words of the classic hymn written by Martin Luther – “And though the wrong seems oft so strong – God is the ruler yet.” The comfort we seek is the Word of the Lord that endures forever.

Sara invited me to share this little story. There was a mom who was approached by her child. “Mom, why do the best people die so soon?” Mom replied, “When you’re in a garden, which flowers do you pick first?” Child replied, “I don’t know.” Mom said, “You pick the most beautiful ones first.”

Aaron and Sara and Mackenzie and Garrett - your family compassion and love for Jamie, Carson and Christian - those are not simply choices - they are, I believe, divine qualities. They reveal the ongoing and active presence of God with you and in you. And none of you or us here today stand alone in these circumstances. Even in Jamie and Carson and Christian’s death, God is present with us. He is the God of resurrection life, love, and compassion.

Compassion and love are what brought Jamie, Carson, and Christian into this world and they are what allowed you, in the end, to let them go. That is the miracle in the midst of today’s circumstances. That, Sara and Aaron and Mackenzie and Garrett, is the miracle that has and will continue to let you entrust Jamie, Carson, and Christian to God. And, it is the same miracle by which you will forever be their mom and dad and brother and sister.

We all want our children to outlive us. No parent ever thinks the day may come when they must bury their children.  But the world in which we live is not about fairness or justice. What we expect from God is far above fairness and justice. It is mercy and grace. Mercy that is strong enough to bear our broken hearts and make them whole again.  Mercy that is strong enough to hold a hope of a reunion to come.  Mercy that is strong enough to fill our emptiness and teach us joy again.

In this real world of tragedy, trauma, sin, curse, destruction and death, God’s compassion and love for us are why, in the Christian faith, death never has the final word. Death is for sure our enemy - but it is NOT the final reality. It is why God says that he makes all things new.

Physical life has changed for Jamie, Carson, and Christian - but there IS a life that has not ended for these three precious boys. It’s the reality of a life found in the grace of God and the love of Jesus Christ.    

As real as the circumstances are today, the greater reality is the love of God, the power of Christ’s resurrection, and the healing of our lives. That is the greater reality into which we entrust Jamie, Carson, Christian and ourselves.

Tears are the words with which we tell God our pain. When tears fall, we entrust. When questions and doubts arise, we entrust. When circumstances overwhelm, we entrust. Over and over we entrust ourselves and those we love to God and the new life He is creating. And we do not do this alone. We do it together with and supported by family, friends, the angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven, of whom Jamie, Carson, and Christian are now one.

We come to God in our sorrow and in our mortality and He answers us with the gift of His own Son, Jesus. He gives Jesus to us, in our flesh and blood, to bear our suffering in His own suffering and to die for us the death that ends death’s reign once and for all.

When a child dies, all of us struggle with the purpose and will of God and rightfully so. Every person has a purpose in the divine design.

Marshall Shelley and his wife lost a child shortly after birth. He wrote about the brief life of their child and their grief. I want to personalize his words for us today. He said, “Why did God create a child to live sixteen years, thirteen years, ten years? He didn’t. He did not create Jamie, Carson, and Christian to live sixteen, thirteen, and ten years. He did not create me to live forty years (or whatever number he may choose to extend my days in this world). God created Jamie, Carson and Christian for eternity. He created each of us for eternity, where we may be surprised to find our true calling, which always seems just out of reach here on earth.”

The Psalmist describes children as a treasure from the Lord, gifts from God to the wombs, hearts, and our lives. No life and no teenager and no child is hidden from the Lord. No teenager and no child suffers without the Lord suffering and no teenager’s cry and no child’s cry is left unheard in the ears of our heavenly Father.

(STORY OF JAMIE RIGHT HERE – CONFIRMATION MATERIALS – TEENSERVE TRIP – ALONG WITH CARSON AND JAMIE GOING NEXT YEAR).

The gospel of Mark 10 tells us that people were bringing their children to Jesus, hoping that He might touch and bless them.  The disciples pushed the children away, thinking they were in the way. Jesus said, “Don’t push these children away. Don’t ever get between them and me. These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom. Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.” Then, gathering the children up in his arms, he laid his hands of blessing on them.

I know that we don’t get all our questions answered, but I also know that we must all become like a little child and come to Jesus… Bring your pain to Jesus… Bring your broken hearts to Jesus… Find your comfort not in explanations or reasons but in the hope and promise of a manger that held the Christ child, the cross on which Jesus suffered to put an end to our suffering, and His death that gives us life – life everlasting, eternal life – life that is never quenched by physical death.  He gives power to the faint. He fills the hearts of the empty and gives strength to the exhausted.

He will renew your strength… He will restore you… The pain of this day is real – but through the pain we can also find a way to the promise and hope of that which is to come. It is a day when tears will flow with joy instead of sadness. It is a day when all our questions of WHY fade away in the presence of the Lord, in the reunion with those whom we love who depart in the Lord, and in the unending future of joy He has prepared for us.

The pain we feel today says something to us not just about death, but also about life. Life, when it is brief, is a reminder that all of us can be recalled at any time. Life is transitory. Psalm 39:5 reminds us, “Each person’s life is but a breath.” Since we have no promise of how long we are given life and breath, surely we must maximize the opportunities God gives us. Count every day a blessing. Bless every day by counting.

Time will bring some healing, but it will not heal all the wounds.

Billy Graham wrote, “Time does not heal. It’s what you do with the time that heals … a long life or a short life are of equal importance to God.”

Time alone doesn’t overcome sorrow. So, we turn to the only One who can enable us to deal with our grief. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Ps. 34:18). Faith in Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life, gives us unexpected strength. We grieve, but not as those who have no hope.

Jamie, Carson, and Christian are in the Lord’s presence by God’s grace. And through Jesus Christ we will get there, too.

Jamie, Carson, and Christian have brought joy and smiles and energy and sunshine and a simple faith and believing and trusting, exuberant love – to you and to us all.

Jamie, Carson, and Christian have taught us so much about the precious gift of a teenager and a child.

Grief hammers and tears at our hearts today – BUT the memories we have will always be cherished and no one or NOTHING can take those from us. AND we realize, because of Jesus and his victory over death, that there will be a reunion. There is a song by Watermark that says it well - “We cling to God’s promise that we will hold them someday in heaven.”

A writer by the name of Kenneth McFarland told of an item he found on the obituary page of the newspaper in a small southern town.

It read, “Billy, it was just a year ago today that you left us and the sunshine went out of our lives. But, we turned on the headlights and we’re going on … and Billy, we shall keep on doing the best we can until that glorious day when we shall see you again.” It was signed simply “Love, the family.” No names, just a simple testimony to the kind of faith that enables a person to go on in the face of sorrow and death.

And today I want to say the same about Jamie, Carson, and Christian. Jamie, Carson, and Christian - you have left us and the sunshine went out of our lives. But we will turn on the headlights and we will go on – and Jamie, Carson, and Christian, we will keep on doing the best we can until that glorious day when we shall see you again.

Until we come to that day when all mysteries, purposes, and plans of God are sorted out for us in the day when we shall see God face-to-face, let us be thankful that the lives of Jamie, Carson, and Christian have enriched us and made us the better because of it.

Now Jamie, Carson, and Christian fully and completely belong to God. Today we release their hands as God has grasped them over there, and He will never let them go.

    Victor Frankl once said: “We cannot judge a biography by its length, by the number of pages in it; we must judge by the richness of the contents. Sometimes the “unfinisheds” are among the most beautiful symphonies.” 

    Jamie, Carson, and Christian – all of their brief lives touched each of you in their own way as sons, brothers, grandsons, nephews, cousins, friends, classmates, team players, youth group, neighborhood and town buddies.

    Their unfinished lives are among the most beautiful symphonies. That’s because they put music in our lives and it was a beautiful piece of music. And it plays on and on and on – and it is a symphony that will never end. And right now I believe it’s playing among the heavenly angels in God’s heaven, prepared for Jamie, Carson, and Christian.    

    And while we say goodbye to Jamie, Carson and Christian, we also say hello to the love and hope that is the meaning of Jamie, Carson, and Christian’s lives among us.  

Love may change its form, but it does not die.  We seek to find meaning. We feel pain and sorrow – beyond words.

But there is also love. Enduring love. Eternal love.

    In the rising of the sun and in its going down we will remember them – in love.
    In the beginning of the year and when it ends we will remember them – in love.

    So long as we live, they too shall live for they are now a part of us as we remember them – in love.

    Today is a closing and an opening— a saying goodbye and a saying hello again. So while we say farewell to the Jamie, Carson, and Christian we know, we greet the Jamie, Carson, and Christian who have become a part of us - the Jamie, Carson and Christian who lives on with us as the love which is in our hearts.

    “And now abides, faith, hope and love, these three: but the greatest of these is love.”  

Before They Go to School . . . Have This Conversation

(The following post is written by Lysa TerKeurst. She is a BRILLIANT author, incredible ministry leader and a great mom. Her new book "The Best Yes" just released and it is a great read! Every person I know could benefit from reading the wisdom in those pages. She recently wrote this blog post and I wanted to share it with you as well.)

"I look around the dinner table and feel that desperate ache not uncommon to women who deeply love.

Whether it’s my own family or those who just feel like family, I want so much for them. These young people who are so full of possibility and dreams and bright futures… they have my heart.

Yet my heart feels fragile in the hands of these young people. They are smart. They are grounded. But they are young.

It takes me back to me at that age.

And that scares me.

I remember feeling so grown up and crazy excited at the chance to be in charge of my own life. Ready for independence. Ready for love. Ready for the next chapter of my life.
Chasing what felt good and thrilling, I quickly learned the wind blows in dangerous directions sometimes. Going with the flow led me places I didn’t intend to go. And I woke up one morning ashamed of my choices, wondering how in the world I got to this place.

How?

I cringe thinking back on it. And I cry. Because I don’t want that experience for these people I desperately love.

So, in the midst of the laughter and casual banter, I turn the conversation at the dinner table to a word I want them to know and live.

Pre-decide.

Decide today who you want to be. In this moment of togetherness, surrounded by family, and saturated in love — decide.

Decide what your answer will be when the talk turns ugly and the laughter turns mean against that girl who desperately needs you to be her friend.

Decide what your answer will be when someone invites you to the cool party full of drinks and drugs.

Decide what your answer will be when the boy says it’s no big deal to stay the night.

Decide what your answer will be when “friends” laugh at your Christian views and challenge you to lighten up.

Pre-decide.

Decide today who you are going to turn to if you do get into trouble. Remember, the people at this table. Remember, who truly has your best interest at heart. Remember who you are.

Pre-decide.

Decide today to turn around any mistakes from your past by asking for God’s forgiveness and walking in His grace.

Decide today to ignore the enemy who wants to trick you and trip you and take you out.
Pre-decide.

Yes, pre-decide.

And then we go around the table and tell what we are pre-deciding this year. And my heart feels less of that ache.

I’m not so foolish to think this will act as a bad choice immunization. We are all susceptible. But it is a way to infuse their heart with a memory of a pre-decision.

And with that the plates are cleared, the cookies are nothing more than crumbs, and it’s time to go.

So, I whisper a few last words that are a “best yes” for them…

Go where wisdom gathers, not where wisdom scatters.

Make decisions today that will still be good tomorrow.

And (insert voice cracking and tears welling up), remember how much I love you.

Here are some great Bible verses to pray for our kids as they head off to school this year:

• Galatians 1:10 - For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
• Romans 12:2 - Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
• Joshua 24:15 - But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.
• Proverbs 29:25 - The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.
• 1 Thessalonians 2:4 - But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.
• 1 Corinthians 15:33 - Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”
• Acts 5:29 - But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.”

I want to further equip you to have these kinds of discussions with your kids… your spouse… your coworkers… your fellow ministry leaders. My new book The Best Yes: Making Wise Decisions in the Midst of Endless Demands will do just that.

Living Life Over Again

A long-time friend and ministry colleague of mine by the name of Rex Bullock is speaker and president of Dayspring Ministries (dayspringradio.com). He also has a blog that I enjoy reading when it comes along. Today, he posted a great piece that I share with you here. It's some great food for thought. And it struck all my heart strings as I sat in my Lazy-Boy chair, just taking some time to journal and reflect on the goodness of the Lord in my life. Rex's blog (rexbullock.blogspot.com) was words fitly written on a quiet Sunday afternoon after two worship services of preaching on how Jesus calls us to an "Upside Down" way of life - a different way to live. In the church I pastor, we are exploring this theme from the Beatitudes found in the opening recorded words of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. And yes, I let him know I would use it here on my blog!

Years  ago I read the testimony of an anonymous friar in a Nebraska monastery. His words didn't make much impact on me then, but at this point in my life they make great sense and I'm trying to take them to heart. This is not what you would expect in a "religious testimony"... Maybe that's why I appreciate it so much.

"If I had my life to live over again,

I'd try to make more mistakes next time.

I would relax, I would limber up, I would be sillier than I have been this trip.

I know of very few things I would take seriously. I would take more trips. I would be crazier. I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers, and watch more sunsets. 

I would do more walking and looking. 

I would eat more ice cream and less beans. 

I would have more actual troubles, and fewer imaginary ones. 

You see, I'm one of those people who lives sensibly hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it over again I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else, just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead each day. 

I've been one of those people who never go anywhere without a thermometer, a hot-water bottle, a gargle, a raincoat, aspirin, and a parachute. 

If I had it to do over again I would go places, do things and travel lighter than I have. 

If I had my life to live over I would start barefooted earlier in the Spring and stay that way later in the Fall .

I would play hookey more.

I wouldn't make such good grades, except by accident. 

I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies."

And in Rex's words: It's fairly safe to say, this old gentleman had his fill of stress. He realized that to break its spell one has to break the mold of a rat-race life-style. May his tribe increase. 

______________

How about you? What's your life lessons learned about living life over again? 

Will You Take Up Something for Lent?

If you check out Facebook this week, there are a lot of people giving up something up for Lent.  Yes, there are quite a few who have said their FB “goodbye,” because they will be giving up Facebook.  Thousands, maybe millions, will be giving up chocolate, french fries, coffee, swearing, late-night snacks, food during the day, or some such other thing.

And they will do it in the name of fasting. You see, the idea of giving up something for Lent has taken on a certain cultural cache. I think it actually is sort of a strange phenomenon in our culture of overindulgence and excess and materialism. 

On the surface, I guess I see it as a good thing.  It seems for sure that self-denial, even of menial or luxuriant things, is a much overlooked virtue. So I really do applaud all of those that, in the name of God or their faith, are trying to give up something for Lent.

But I think we also need a word of caution right now. Don’t let your giving something up for Lent replace an actual relationship with the living God. And don’t let your sense of piety over giving up something for Lent keep you from taking a hard look at what God really wants us to be doing. The Good Book - the Holy Bible - actually has something to say to us about this.

This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families. (Isaiah 58:6-7, The Message)

So, I say just be careful. Really careful. Yes, it is great to do something for God. It is great to remember the sacrifice that Christ made for us. But we must do it for the right reasons. Don’t get caught up in the cultural trend of giving something up without also trying to take something up. We give things up to make room to take things up. Might I suggest that you give up something that is getting in the way of your relationship with God.  Give something up that is getting in the way of the Kingdom.

Give up chocolate.  Give up chocolate that is made on the backs of the working poor.  Give up choclate that enslaves children and puts them in dangerous working conditions. Give up Hershey.  And take up Fair-Trade chocolate.

Give up Facebook.  And take up a pen and piece of paper and a stamp, and write a note to a teacher, a friend, a loved one, someone sick, or someone lonely.

Give up TV.  And take up conversations.  Take up stronger relationships.  Take up the Bible.  Take up prayer.
Give up oppression.  Give up resentment.  Give up fear.  And take up justice.  Take up reconciliation.  Take up love.

And yes, mark your forehead with ashes – not to take up shame and guilt.  Mark your forehead with ashes – and take up your inheritance as a child of God.  Take up your task to do the work of Christ.  Mark the start of your journey to the cross, so that when you get to Easter, you can look back and know that this Lent, you did something with God.  Then sing “Hallelujah, The Kingdom has come.”

Text of Message Shared at Funeral of Two Sisters, Ages 2 & 4

Note: This is the text of the funeral message I shared at the recent funeral of Chloe, age 4, and Camille, age 2 - two sisters who were killed in a train/car accident in northwest Iowa. I offer it here as a word of hope and comfort to all who need it. 

BELIEVING WITH HOPE

It seems that for all of us here today that of all deaths, that of a child appears the most unnatural and hardest to bear. We expect the old to die. When those who are old die, it is always difficult, but perhaps it comes as no surprise. But the death of a young child or a youth is a different matter. Life with its beauty, wonder, and potential lies ahead for them. Death comes as a cruel thief when it strikes down the young.

In a way that is different from any other relationship, a child is bone of her parents’ bone and flesh of their flesh. When a child dies, part of the parent is buried. When we lose a child, the effect is widespread. It not only deeply reaches into the fabric and heart of loving and caring parents, it also involves siblings, grandparents, friends and family, in incredibly unique ways.

So, I want to begin today by naming some realities about this day and the circumstances in which we gather:

• This was an accident and no one is to blame here;
• The hurt is deeper than the deepest hurt; 
• The tears seem endless;
• The pain feels unbearable;
• There is a sense of powerlessness that is with each of  us;
• We are trying to let go when what we really want to do is hold on;
• We have a sense of physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion.

I am not telling you anything you do not already know and feel. But I also want to tell us all something else. While the things I just named are very real, please know today that they are not the final or ultimate reality. There is a dimension yet unknown to any of us, but very real to Chloe and Camille – a life that brings the promise of Christ and with it the promise of resurrection.

I will tell you that there is no answer that can fill an empty mother’s heart or end a father’s longing or restore a sister to you. We come here today, not for answers but for comfort. The comfort we seek is the Word of the Lord that endures forever.

Dan and Heather and Nate - your compassion and love for Chloe and Camille - those are not simply choices, they are, I believe, divine qualities. They reveal the ongoing and active presence of God with you and in you. And none of you or us here today stand alone in these circumstances. Even in Chloe and Camille’s death, God is present with us. He is the God of resurrection life, love, and compassion.

Compassion and love are what brought Chloe and Camille into this world and they are what allowed you, in the end, to let them go. That is the miracle in the midst of today’s circumstances. That, Dan and Heather and Nate, is the miracle that has and will continue to let you entrust Camille and Chloe to God. And, it is the same miracle by which you will forever be their mom and dad and brother.

We all want our children to outlive us. No parent ever thinks the day may come when they must bury their children.  But the world in which we live is not about fairness or justice. What we expect from God is far above fairness and justice. It is mercy and grace. Mercy and grace that is strong enough to bear our broken hearts and make them whole again.  Mercy and grace that is strong enough to hold a hope of the blest reunion to come.  Mercy and grace that is strong enough to fill our emptiness and teach us joy again.

In this real world of tragedy, trauma, sin, curse, destruction and death, God’s compassion and love for us are why, in the Christian faith, death never has the final word. Death is for sure our enemy - but it is not the final reality. It is why God says that he makes all things new.

Physical life has changed for Chloe and Camille, but there IS a life that has not ended for these two precious girls. It’s the reality of a life found in the grace of God and the love of Jesus Christ.    

As real as the circumstances are today, the greater reality is the love of God, the power of Christ’s resurrection, and the healing of our lives. That is the greater reality into which we entrust Chloe and Camille and ourselves.

When tears fall, we entrust. When questions and doubts arise, we entrust. When circumstances overwhelm, we entrust. Over and over we entrust ourselves and those we love to God and the new life He is creating. And we do not do this alone. We do it together with and supported by family, friends, the angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven, of whom Chloe and Camille are now one.

We come to God in our sorrow and in our mortality and He answers us with the gift of His own Son, Jesus. He gives Jesus to us, in our flesh and blood, to bear our suffering in His own suffering and to die for us the death that ends death’s reign once and for all.

When a child dies, all of us struggle with the purpose and will of God and rightfully so. Every person has a purpose in the divine design.

Marshall Shelley and his wife lost a child shortly after birth. He wrote about the brief life of their child and their grief. I want to personalize his words for us today. He said, “Why did God create a child to live two minutes? He didn’t. He did not create Chloe and Camille to live two or four years. He did not create me to live forty years (or whatever number he may choose to extend my days in this world). God created Chloe and Camille for eternity. He created each of us for eternity, where we may be surprised to find our true calling, which always seems just out of reach here on earth.”

The Psalmist describes children as a treasure from the Lord, gifts from God to the wombs, hearts, and lives of His people. No life and no child is hidden from the Lord. No child suffers without the Lord suffering and no child’s cry is left unheard in the ears of our heavenly Father.

Dan and Heather, it was your intention to raise Chloe and Camille in the faith. I remember that you brought them both to baptism and we know that God claimed them as His own. “I have called you by name; you are mine.” You wanted them to hear the stories of Jesus and listen to your prayers. Please know now that God reaches into your greatest sorrows with the rescue of eternal life that death cannot steal. It is this confidence that calls to us now in our sorrow.

Long ago the prophet Isaiah promised that the Savior who would come to us “would gather the lambs in His arms and carry them in His bosom and gently lead the young.”  Those words became flesh and blood when God sent His Son to be that shepherd to carry the little lambs in His arms. In their baptism, Chloe and Camille became a lamb of the Lord’s flock and a sinner of His own redeeming.

The gospel of Mark 10 tells us that people were bringing their children to Jesus, hoping that He might touch and bless them.  The disciples pushed the children away, thinking they were in the way. Jesus said, “Don’t push these children away. Don’t ever get between them and me. These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom. Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.” Then, gathering the children up in his arms, he laid his hands of blessing on them.

I know that we don’t get all our questions answered, but I also know that we must all become like a little child and come to Jesus… Bring your pain to Jesus… Bring your broken hearts to Jesus… Find your comfort not in explanations or reasons but in the hope and promise of a manger that held the Christ child, the cross on which Jesus suffered to put an end to our suffering, and His death that gives us life – life everlasting, eternal life – life that is never quenched by physical death.  He gives power to the faint. He fills the hearts of the empty and gives strength to the exhausted.

He will renew your strength… He will restore you… The pain of this day is real – but through the pain we can also find a way to the promise and hope of that which is to come. It is a day when tears will flow with joy instead of sadness. It is a day when all our questions of WHY fade away in the presence of the Lord, in the reunion with those whom we love who depart in the Lord, and in the unending future of joy He has prepared for us.

The pain we feel today says something to us not just about death, but also about life. Life, when it is brief, is a reminder that all of us can be recalled at any time. Life is transitory. Psalm 39:5 reminds us, “Each person’s life is but a breath.” Since we have no promise of how long we are given life and breath, surely we must maximize the opportunities God gives us. Count every day a blessing. Bless every day by counting.

Time will bring some healing, but it will not heal all the wounds. Billy Graham wrote, “Time does not heal. It’s what you do with the time that heals … a long life or a short life are of equal importance to God.”

Time alone doesn’t overcome sorrow. So, we turn to the only One who can enable us to deal with our grief. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Ps. 34:18). Faith in Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life, gives us unexpected strength. We grieve, but not as those who have no hope.

Chloe and Camille are in the Lord’s presence by God’s grace. And through Jesus Christ we will get there, too.Chloe and Camille have brought joy and smiles and energy and sunshine and a simple faith and believing and trusting, exuberant love – to you and to us all.Chloe and Camille have taught us so much about the precious gift of a child. Though grief hammers and tears at our hearts, the memories we have will always be cherished. AND we realize, because of Jesus and his victory over death, that there will be a reunion. That song by Watermark said it well, “We cling to God’s promise that we will hold them someday in heaven.”

A writer by the name of Kenneth McFarland told of an item he found on the obituary page of the newspaper in a small southern town. It read, “Billy, it was just a year ago today that you left us and the sunshine went out of our lives. But, we turned on the headlights and we’re going on … and Billy, we shall keep on doing the best we can until that glorious day when we shall see you again.” It was signed simply “Love, the family.” No names, just a simple testimony to the kind of faith that enables a person to go on in the face of sorrow and death.

And today I want to say the same about Chloe and Camille. Chloe and Camille, you have left us and the sunshine went out of our lives. But we will turn on the headlights and we will go on – and Chloe and Camille, we will keep on doing the best we can until that glorious day when we shall see you again.

Until we come to that day when all mysteries, purposes, and plans of God are sorted out for us in the day when we shall see God face-to-face, let us be thankful that the lives of Chloe and Camille have enriched us and made us the better because of it.

 Chloe and Camille belong to God. Today we release their hands as God has grasped them over there, and He will never let them go. 

       Victor Frankl once said: “We cannot judge a biography by its length, by the number of pages in it; we must judge by the richness of the contents. Sometimes the “unfinisheds” are among the most beautiful symphonies.” 

      I agree with Victor. Chloe’s and Camille’s brief life touched each of you in their own way as daughter, sister, grandchild, niece, cousin, friend. Their unfinished life is among the most beautiful symphonies. That’s because they put music in our lives and it was a beautiful piece of music. And it plays on and on and on – and it is a symphony that will never end. And right now I believe it’s playing among the heavenly angels in God’s heaven, prepared for Chloe and Camille.   

      

      And while we say goodbye to Camille and Chloe today, we also say hello to the love and hope that is the meaning of Chloe’s and Camille’s life.

Love may change its form, but it does not die.  We seek to find meaning. We feel pain and sorrow – beyond words.

But there is also love. Enduring love. Eternal love.

      In the rising of the sun and in its going down we will remember Chloe and Camille – in love.
      In the beginning of the year and when it ends we will remember Chloe and Camille - in love.

      So long as we live, they too shall live for they are now a part of us as we remember Chloe and Camille  – in love.

      

      Today is a closing and an opening— a saying goodbye and a saying hello again. So while we say farewell to the Chloe and Camille we know, we greet the Chloe and Camille who have become a part of us - the Chloe and Camille who lives on with us as the love which is in our hearts.

      “And now abides, faith, hope and love, these three: but the greatest of these is love.”  

Closing Song Lyrics – Steven Curtis Chapman 

So we can cry with hope
We can say goodbye with hope
Because we know our goodbye
Is not the end

We can grieve with hope
Because we believe with hope
There's a place by God's grace
There's a place where we'll see your face, again

So, we wait with hope

And we ache with hope

We hold on with hope

We let go with hope.