If I Should Die Before I Wake...

     I'm going to do something that I imagine most people will find morbid at worst, and unsettling at least. I also figure my wife and mother WILL NOT like that I raised this topic (as if speaking of it will bring it to pass). Granted, it is an unpleasant topic to raise, but I have a very pragmatic view of death. At present, I have conducted nearly 200 funerals. I have stood at the head of the casket, as families took their last earthly look at someone they loved, so, so many times. Those caskets have held mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, grandchildren, grandparents, siblings, children and any other relation you can imagine. They were old, young, midlife, teens, children, infants, healthy, sick, every demographic. They were natural causes, self inflicted, accidental, criminal, all manner of causes. This front row view of the brevity and frailty of life forced me to look it in the eye, contemplate it, and realize it on a regular basis.
     There have been periods in my life where I performed a funeral on an average of once a week and in one particular week I performed 8 in 7 days. At every funeral I performed there came a moment, usually when they were lowering the casket into the ground, when I thought to myself, "Someday, someone will be performing my funeral, comforting my family and watching them lower my body into the ground." To this day, if my phone rings very early in the morning or very late at night, I hold my breath in fear that I am about to be told that someone has died or is dying.
     I know I will die. I have accepted that fact, but that doesn't mean I'm not afraid. It's not death itself I fear, I know I will live eternally after Jesus raises me, but I have an, at times, overwhelming fear of leaving those I love. I know they will be fine and that the Lord will take care of them, but I fear leaving them on a bad day, after an argument or a period of time when we haven't had time for one another. I fear dying without them knowing things I want them to know, so I decided to make sure that can't happen.
     Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I want my family to know these things.......
     Jade, Whenever I watched romantic movies I always wondered to myself what did happily ever after look like beyond the kiss and music played and the closing credits rolled. I now know the answer to that question. It looks like our life together. Whenever I heard Ephesians 5 preached in the past (husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church....love your wife as yourself) I couldn't understand it until you. As long as you are with me I have everything I want and need. As long as you are happy I am happy and when you aren't, nothing can make me happy. You have made me a better person in every area of my life (friend, spouse, child, parent, preacher). You bring the best out of me because you make me want to be better for you, to be my best for you. You inspire me with your creativity, your sensitivity to the hurts and needs of others. When you walk up to me, put your arms around me and kiss me, there is nothing greater in this life. I admire you and your strength, your accomplishments, your dreams, your talents, your resiliency. You amaze me with your ability to recognize the needs of others, to be able to sense their pain, and then to have the desire to reach out to them and lift them up. Everything you do you succeed at. Your talents are many and diverse. I have been madly in love with you since I was a teenager and continue to be amazed at the fact that year after year I continue to find more and more things about you that I love so much. My greatest desire for you is that you learn to see yourself through my eyes....the perfect combination of inner and physical beauty. You are the greatest thing to ever happen to my life. You saved me, and, "even when I was flat broke, you made me feel like a million bucks, it's true, I was made for you."Thank you for giving yourself to me and for sharing your life with me. All I ask of you is that you promise me you will live your life faithful to Christ and make sure our boys do to, so that I can leave this world with the comfort and assurance I will see you again and I will be with you all forever. A love like ours is too great to just exist for a brief lifetime, it deserves to be eternal. I love you.