Famed British preacher Charles H. Spurgeon once said, “A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you, and were helped by you, will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.” Because we have no children or grandchildren to visit our grave site, my wife and I decided to be cremated. Her ashes are on my hearth, but I don’t need that to remind me daily of the light she shined into my life for over fifty years. What kind of “monuments” are you and I going to leave behind?
I was almost 14 when my mother died. My father and I chose the tombstone that would eventually mark both of their graves. It had a cross on it with roses as a border, but like most modern tombstones the message carved on it was simply names and dates. The person’s entire life is represented by a small dash between the date of birth and the date they died; hardly a fitting tribute to two precious lives well lived.
In previous generations, the dying person and their family were much more creative when choosing a message to be carved into marble. Some of those old monuments or tombstones are interesting. One of my favorites simply reads, “I told you I was sick.” Here are a few others I’ve seen in photos. “Here lies John Yeast. Pardon me for not rising.” “She always said her feet were killing her, but no one believed her.” One tombstone has a Christmas cookie recipe on the back with a caption that reads, “When someone asked mom for her cookie recipe she would always say, ‘Over my dead body.’” But my all-time favorite simply reads, “Jesus called and Kim answered.”
You may think this is a gruesome topic for a blog about living the Christian life, but ever since Adam and Eve messed things up for all of us (not that we would do any better), death has been as much a part of life as our birth. As Christians, the day we die is simply “moving day” from here on Earth to more glorious accommodations. It is the end of our temporal, physical bodies until our new bodies rise on resurrection day. (Isaiah 26:19, John 5:28, 1 Corinthians 15:12 and Mark 12:25) But death is a continuation of our eternal, spiritual life that began when we accepted Jesus Christ as our savior. Our body returns to the earth from which we are made (Genesis 3:19) and our spirit joins our Creator in Paradise. (Luke 23:43 and Revelation 2:7)
Very few of us know when our life here will end; although I suspect at my age I’m closer to the end than most of you. The important thing is that each of us can continue to fulfill our mission one day at a time without fear or dread until our tour of duty here finally is completed.