A reader left this comment on my Facebook:
I have left instructions with my executor to have a copy of the small pocket-sized version of Heaven available to anyone who attends whatever type of memorial I have.
Over the years I’ve done many memorial services. It’s true that in the wake of a loss, people’s hearts and minds are often open to hearing what really does happen on the other side of death.
The Heaven booklet has been widely used at funerals and memorial services. Some churches, including my own, make it available at every memorial service. Sometimes it’s handed out at the door; sometimes it’s placed on the seats or pews. When the person’s death was tragic and troubling, my booklet If God Is Good: Why Do We Hurt? Is also used. Unbelievers and believers alike struggle with the problem of evil and suffering. As I do in the Heaven booklet, in If God Is Good, I share the good news of salvation in Christ.
I encourage you to consider leaving instructions in your will for the gospel to be clearly shared at your memorial, and for Christ-centered material to be given to those in attendance. (It certainly doesn’t have to be the Heaven booklet! There are many wonderful books or booklets that could be shared.)
Another idea is to share my booklet Grieving with Hope, which provides an eternal perspective to those struggling with grief. A reviewer kindly wrote:
Randy shares personal observations of what he experienced when his wife, Nanci, passed. Everyone who faces a loss of a loved one will experience “What will my future be like without my loved one?” and the deep sorrow from shock and pain of their passing. Randy reminds and encourages those who are grieving that we have a God who is faithful, loving, and kind and He is with us as we walk the journey of grief. Randy shares very practical and helpful information about stages of grief, but more importantly, he gives scriptural references of how we can grieve with hope. I am grateful to provide this booklet to the members of our Grief Share class.
Far from morbid, planning your own memorial service can be wise, since death is life’s greatest certainty. But for those who love Christ, death is not an end—it’s a transition that will bring us face to face with our Creator.
I’ve often read at memorial services this depiction of a believer’s death:
I’m standing on the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She’s an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and the sky come down to mingle with each other. And then I hear someone at my side saying, “There, she’s gone.”
Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side. And just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her.
And just at the moment when someone at my side says, “There, she’s gone,” there are other eyes watching her coming, and there are other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”
And that is dying.
We see life differently when we realize that death is a small obstacle that marks a great beginning. What a gift to pass on that perspective, and the hope of Jesus, to those who will grieve our absence in this present world.
