Good Grief?

Part 1

In my line of work, I get to celebrate some of the greatest days families share together.  Births of babies, graduations, weddings & baptisms are the moments that make my job fun.  Those are the events that breathe oxygen into the soul of a pastor.  Then there are the days that are tough.  Helping a family say good-bye to a loved one is one of the hardest things a pastor has to do.  This last month I helped three families say good-bye to loved ones.  Since I have lived in Leslie I have performed over 200 funerals.  Almost without fail it is a shocking time for the family.  I wanted to talk about death and preparing for it before you have to.

The first thing we have to remember is that no one is immune to death.  A couple of things are certain.  One, we are all going to die one day.  That is without question.  The second thing is that we can never be certain about when that will happen.  The Bible says, “But you do not know what will happen tomorrow! Your life is like a mist. You can see it for a short time, but then it goes away.” (James 4:14 NCV)   So if those two things are true, we had better prepare ourselves for that day.  Having sat with all these families, I think there are some things we can do to make this time a little more bearable for the ones we love.  Over the next couple of articles I write I will try to share some insights with you that I’ve learned from helping others.

In a practical sense there are three things that really stand out when I’ve met with families.

  1. Do a pre need consultation with a funeral home

All funeral homes will talk with you and help you begin to plan your service.  It will allow you to make decisions that your family will have a hard time making during their grief.  It is the basics of the service with the funeral home.

It will be easier and more controlled if you meet with a funeral home before the emotions of a loss come crashing into your lives.  It is hard to make solid financial decisions when grief is clouding your thoughts.  Spend some time together choosing what you would like for your loved one and yourself.

  1. Try to prepare financially for the funeral

You can also begin paying for the service before it is necessary.  Many times it is a shock to lose a family member, but can also be an expensive time.  It is hard to say good-bye but then the burden of paying for the service can be even more over whelming.  Since our boys were young, we have carried enough life insurance to be able to bury them.  We have enough life insurance to bury both of us.  I would hate to place that burden on my sons.  It is just another way we show love, to our families.

Those are just two ways we make this time more bearable for our family.  In the next article we will talk about preparing the service itself.  A couple of years ago I passed out a form to our church that gave information for the family to use when planning a service.  Next week we will walk through planning your service.