Not i

Please tell as complete a truth as you can for my wake/funeral services. Please don't sugar-coat any eulogy. I'm not an angel. I won't be ONLY "all the good adjectives". There should be a bad adjective for every good one too. Tell the truth, as a Speaker for the Dead would (refer to "Speaker for the Dead" by Orson Scott Card). Please tell the world how hopeless I'd have been without Christ.

Please don't just tell them things pointing to Jesus. Please tell them ALL ABOUT Jesus - who he is, what he came do to, what he has in store for the future and how we can relate to him individually. Don't just gloss over it with general words of comfort. Show them that everything in my life was BECAUSE of Him. That without Him, there can be no service for me. Please talk about Him more than you talk about me. I know my loved ones would appreciate this too.

Please tell me the stuff you'd say in my condolence books NOW, not then. It would be great if whatever you wrote in those books are just an official record of what you've already told me... for my loved ones to be comforted.

Please know that I really really do love you more than I can express. (I REALLY can't think of anyone I hate or dislike more than I express.) If it seems that I don't show you love that much, often, it is because God has ordained our relationships to be wired differently so that other people in your lives whom you meet more often and who have more to give you fulfill your need for love, not I... but all too often, it is also because I am just too weak as a human being to fulfill the extent of my love for you.

Please know that there is a huge carnal self I struggle with everyday that most people don't see. I'm not as humble or selfless or secure as I might seem, just in case you were thinking so. I don't have things gotten together. JESUS is the one who has things gotten together for me, not I. It's like the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness... they were full of disobedience and God kept smiting them in judgement, but to the nations all around, the Israelites appeared invincible, victorious and to be feared. So am I on the inside too. Everything good is just God's grace... which I've received plenty of but still do not appreciate as much as I should.