I can't help but to assume that this passage of scripture was handpicked for me. As a funeral director and the county coroner, my daily life involves comforting people who are experiencing the loss of a loved one. Day after day I am reminded of how precious life is-that death does not know race or age. I have sat with families who were sad but also happy because their loved one had lived a full life and death was to some degree expected. I have also sat with families in utter shock when life has been lost at a young age. I would like to think that as I have walked with friends, neighbors and family through this process that I have provided some consolation.
It is tough to deal with death on a daily basis. I am often asked how I do it, and to be honest I don't know the answer. It is difficult to see the hurt it causes people. Even though I do not know some of them personally, I feel like I come to know them through the process. It is mentally and emotionally exhausting for everyone involved. I want to provide comfort and to console every family that I come in contact with, making sure that everything goes perfectly. I feel a duty to honor the wishes of the deceased and the family so they can find comfort and begin their healing. With so many variables and not much time to prepare for each funeral, the challenge is to listen to everyone's input and how each person wants things to go, and then find the meaningful happy median, and sometimes that is not easy.
This is not just my job but a way of life for me and my family. Putting other people's needs ahead of my own and my family's needs is what it requires-including interruptions of family time, birthdays, holidays. That is just the way it is. Yet, providing consolation on a daily basis would not be possible without God constantly consoling me and my family. Sometimes God's consolation is not so obvious-coming to us in ways we don't expect or acknowledge. Though I know it takes slowing down to see this, I should practice what I preach by taking that minute to see that God is with me in everything I do.
When I agreed to write this reflection, I first saw it as an intentional request for a funeral director to offer something on consolation; in the process I realized it has little to do with my offering consolation to others and everything about God offering consolation to me. This is the first time in a long time that I have sat in a room by myself and reflected on my own life-the first time I have sat quietly with no sound other than the sound of the keys of my computer soaking up God's word. So yes, this topic was handpicked for me, but not by the one who assigned it. I realize now this is about something a lot bigger than that.
