Having never met this delicate little woman, I stood quietly at her bedside. Sitting across the hospital room were her two adult daughters, Shirley and Hilda. Making this visit with me was Harold, a loving, Godly church elder the family had known for almost thirty years. Florence Sanders had been confined to her home for some time and Harold often visited her there. Having not yet met Florence myself, he thought it would be a good idea for me to share a moment of prayer with her since she had been admitted to the hospital.

    I’m sure Harold introduced me as the new minister. I suppose Sister Sanders (as most in the church referred to her) did not hear him, or did not understand that I was her “new, young preacher.”

    First impressions often proven deceptive. Though she was ill, though she was elderly, though she was tiny and fragile, Sister Sanders was neither quiet nor reserved. We visited about the weather, about her family, and about how nice the hospital was. Eventually the conversation turned to her health. Sister Sanders frankly shared her suspicion that she did not have too many days left. She told Harold, and her daughters, that everything was going to be alright. Then she innocently dropped the bomb.

    “But I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not going to have that new young preacher preaching my funeral!”

    She would not have offended me for a million dollars. Nor would she have embarrassed her daughters intentionally. I looked at Harold. His face was a deep red advancing on purple. By the time I glanced their way, Shirley and Hilda had long ago dropped their eyes to the floor. I think one of them even dropped the purse she was holding! I’m pretty sure both were crying! Yet their mother was just being honest. Not wanting a minister she didn’t know speaking at her funeral service, she had no idea that this very preacher was standing right beside her!

“But I’ll tell you one thing...”

    You know how, without deserving or expecting it, the Lord reaches down to us and dispenses a little grace? It often comes in the form of humor. Right then, at that moment, he gave me the words to speak. Not from any reservoir of wit I posses, but truly a bolt from above, I replied,

    “I’ll tell you something, that new young preacher’s not preaching my funeral either!”

    Florence nodded her approval and thanked us for coming. Her daughters had that “candid camera” look of disbelief. Harold’s suppressed laughter was about to detonate.

    We prayed together (I suppose she wondered why I led the prayer). I have no idea what her girls said when Harold and I left that room. They apologized to me later, and I assured them that I took no offense. In fact, I appreciated what their mother had said. For one thing, she reminded me to never take myself too seriously. And she caused me to reflect on my own mortality, in an unusual sort of way. I’m not going to preach my own funeral! None of us will! Harold, Hilda, Shirley, and I still grin when we remember that day.

    Reflecting on the important themes of life, it occurs to me that along with loving God, love for people is most important. Building relationships of time tested love is what life is all about. I learned from Sister Sanders to rely on God’s ways of teaching me the lessons of life, even as I live it. Don’t take yourself too seriously. You never know when you might join those who have gone on. It might be sooner, it could be later. Who knows who will preach my funeral?

    Funny how things turn out. Florence Sanders lived another several years. And when she finally did go where all senior saints go, guess who preached her funeral? Of course by that time I was not new and my youthful status was up for debate. But I stood beside her once more and again her daughters cried. And we visited our memories of family, of love, of laughter, and of grace.