I recently attended a family funeral for my 90 year old aunt. She was my “closest” aunt and I hadn’t seen her in several years! I was re-acquainted with many distant family members that I only see at funerals and weddings. After the funeral, I thought about how we let time and the busyness of life keep us apart. It’s just shameful…
It’s shameful that it takes a death in the family to bring us together for a visit. What is it about life that we don’t make time for family and friends…lunch, or coffee, or a phone call, something to stay in touch with each other. And what about the Family of Christ, those we’re going to spend all of eternity with? We’re no better. We do the same thing with our Brothers and Sisters in Christ. You meet many people when you’re in the same church for 23 years. In time most people move on to another community or church. But what’s shameful is, we don’t even call, or stop by and visit, or somehow keep in touch. Oh, but we might find time to show up for one hour at their visitation night, to stand by their casket (or worse yet, a can of ashes) and say our good-byes. What’s wrong with this world anyway? God help us to wake up and see the value of family, friends, and the Body of Christ before it’s too late. Jesus took time to tell His disciples, in John Chapter 14, that He was leaving to prepare a place for them, so they could be together again, and that He didn’t want them to let their hearts be troubled. My prayer is that God might make our hearts troubled about neglecting those we ought to be staying in touch with! ...those we say we love, those we say we’re going to miss so much. Oh God, help us to slow down enough in life to visit a friend, to call, drop by and say hello, before we stand at the casket and try to remember how long it’s been since we visited our loved one. We’re all guilty, we’re too entrenched in “our own” circles of life. God help us to break-out and wake-up while we still have time. We’re not getting any younger!