Music Mondays - The one about death

This past weekend, I did my 6th funeral/memorial service since last November and my 8th in the last 13 months. In a sense, I've been in a "season" of death. More accurately, I've been walking along side many others going through seasons of death. 

I believe that's why, after belatedly buying Needtobreathe's latest album, their song "Be Here Long" hit me right square in the heart.

I have heard good songs that dealt with what I can only describe as "the real stuff" of death. Death Cab for Cutie's "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" and Twenty One Pilot's cover of "Cancer" are two stand-outs for their poignancy, even if the former doesn't match my theological convictions. And there are certainly scores hopeful Christian offerings, too numerous to even begin to link to. 

But what this song does is offer a glimpse into the raw struggle of grief. It never gives up our hope in Christ, but for anyone who has been devastated by the loss of someone close to them, these lyrics ring absolutely 100% true to life. 
As Christians, we like to say, we don't grieve as those who have no hope. Certainly true, but let's leave ourselves room for the grieving part of that equation. This song certainly does:

I know I can't keep it together 

but I know that you want me to

Oh, I'm swimming in the grief
And there's no anchor that could hold me down
I don't want any relief
'Cause I don't wanna let you go right now

Yeah, I know you found the promise land
But I'm still here and I'm missing you

I gave you the best of me
Loved you more than anything
But we don't get to be here long

For any of you who have read to the end, here's the studio version as a bonus:

Service Snippets

I was really happy with how my sermon on Bathsheba came together and how I presented it yesterday. The story resonates to our present culture in many ways and I believe she is truly one of the most misunderstood characters in Scripture (listen here). 

Having said all that, I fear my sermon was overshadowed a bit by something that happened right before. During our corporate time of prayer, I asked our work team to come forward for prayer. They were traveling down to Kentucky to help out at Riverside Christian School after the service. 

One of the leaders, Duane, jokingly suggested we pray for Karen E. who was going to be driving down as the third wheel with her husband and Duane. See, Duane and Jim her husband are quite the friendly duo who love to joke and razz each other. 

She responded to that remark by saying "that's ok, I have my Cheez-It's". Being in super-spiritual "prayer mode", I heard "that's ok, I have Jesus". And I complimented her saying, yes, it was good that she'd have Jesus with her. 

It was then that I began to realize my mistake when she said, "no, I said 'I'll have my Cheez-It's'. I don't think I was the only one who misheard her but everyone in our service burst out laughing. 

Fittingly, Duane's wife grabbed a box of those crackers and wrote "Jesus" on them and gave them to Karen as they took off Sunday afternoon.

It reminded me that as much planning as you can do, sometimes you just run into things like this in a service and there is no real way to save the decorum. And you know what, that's ok.