Yesterday was a special anniversary for our country. It was also a special anniversary for my family. We lost someone precious to us. This is what I wrote on that day five years ago.
I will not wear black to my daddy’s funeral.
I will not cry floods of inconsolable tears. I may shed some because I will miss his gentle ways and constant concern—he was still my daddy and no matter how old I have grown he never forgot it. But I will smile through the tears because I know that he is finally pain- and worry-free for the first time in many years.
I will not wear black to my daddy’s funeral. I will not deny the faith he lived every day and taught my sister and me. He did not just talk the talk. He walked the walk and effected more people than he ever knew. His gentleness was only surpassed by his passion for living as a Christian.
I will not wear black to my daddy’s funeral. I will celebrate his life with joy because his eternity is not unknown to me. His was not a desolate life of despair, but one that touched others with its grace. Men he worked with and for respected him. Some may not have liked him because he was “too straight an arrow,” but no one ever doubted his honesty. In a day when we suspect practically everyone of lying to get ahead, to get a promotion, to win an election, to get out of trouble, to salve a conscience, it is truly remarkable that no one who knew him ever doubted his word.
I will not wear black to my daddy’s funeral. I will do my best to continue my life as he lived his, facing problems with prayer and optimism, caring for those whom God had made him responsible for, and seeing to every other need that came his way. Many small churches sit in pews he bought, sing from songbooks he paid for, and have preachers they now support only because he helped support them in the beginning. He never preached sermons there, but they exist in part because he existed.
I will not wear black to my daddy’s funeral. He will be wearing white. What goes with white? Red, blue, green, purple, even pink maybe.
Anything but black.
For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. For verily in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life. 2 Cor 5:1-4.
Dene Ward
I will not wear black to my daddy’s funeral.
I will not cry floods of inconsolable tears. I may shed some because I will miss his gentle ways and constant concern—he was still my daddy and no matter how old I have grown he never forgot it. But I will smile through the tears because I know that he is finally pain- and worry-free for the first time in many years.
I will not wear black to my daddy’s funeral. I will not deny the faith he lived every day and taught my sister and me. He did not just talk the talk. He walked the walk and effected more people than he ever knew. His gentleness was only surpassed by his passion for living as a Christian.
I will not wear black to my daddy’s funeral. I will celebrate his life with joy because his eternity is not unknown to me. His was not a desolate life of despair, but one that touched others with its grace. Men he worked with and for respected him. Some may not have liked him because he was “too straight an arrow,” but no one ever doubted his honesty. In a day when we suspect practically everyone of lying to get ahead, to get a promotion, to win an election, to get out of trouble, to salve a conscience, it is truly remarkable that no one who knew him ever doubted his word.
I will not wear black to my daddy’s funeral. I will do my best to continue my life as he lived his, facing problems with prayer and optimism, caring for those whom God had made him responsible for, and seeing to every other need that came his way. Many small churches sit in pews he bought, sing from songbooks he paid for, and have preachers they now support only because he helped support them in the beginning. He never preached sermons there, but they exist in part because he existed.
I will not wear black to my daddy’s funeral. He will be wearing white. What goes with white? Red, blue, green, purple, even pink maybe.
Anything but black.
For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. For verily in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life. 2 Cor 5:1-4.
Dene Ward
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