When Karissa died, Jeremy and I were newlyweds, living on a single Christian School teacher’s salary. Meaning, we didn’t have two nickels to rub together. Thankfully, my parents were gracious enough to allow us to bury her with my sister in the family plot in Pennsylvania. But God never saw fit to allow us to live nearby, so the grave has been mostly neglected. For many years, that created an awful ache in my mama heart. I so desperately longed to tend her grave!
Last year, I traveled to Pennsylvania for my aunt’s funeral. After lunch, my parents and siblings accompanied me to the girls’ grave. It’s been a few years, and it was obvious. There was a time the image of my child’s unkept memorial would have brought me to tears. But as I stood barefoot on the winter-browned grass, watching my brother scrub her stone and clean up the debris, I smiled.
I’ve learned a lot in the last few years. About death. About grief. About myself. About eternity. About God. One gift loss can give us is perspective. I am now acutely aware of how short time is, how fragile life is, how important it is to make every moment count.
I’ve learned that I was created to tend gardens, not graves.
There was a would-be disciple in the book of Luke who claims he will follow Jesus after he buries his father. (In Jewish tradition, there were two separate burials, at least a year apart.) Jesus, knowing His own time on this earth was ending said, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Was Jesus being heartless? Of course not. He just had an eternal perspective that most of us don’t have. This doesn’t mean we can’t grieve. (Remember Lazarus?) But we cannot allow grief to paralyze us and make us useless for the Kingdom. There is a whole world out there that needs to hear the Good News before it’s eternally too late.
Moses said, “Teach us how short our life is, so that we may become wise.” (Psalm 90:12)
When we learn to “number our days,” we gain an eternal perspective that changes how we grieve. It changes how we live. We become acutely aware that we aren’t promised tomorrow. So we love lavishly… forgive freely… share generously… live fully… and spread the Gospel earnestly.
We seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness… (Matthew 6:33)
I could stand there on my baby’s grave that day with a smile on my face because I know she’s not there, and because I know those who were there that day are much more kingdom-minded because she lived—and died. My parents came to Christ because the other baby on that headstone lived and died. And the seeds of faith they planted and cultivated will continue to grow long after they join our precious girls in Glory.
Because they taught us that we were created to tend gardens, not graves.
And gardens are where dead things come to life.
