Treasure in Our Hearts

One of the joys of ministry is the privilege of welcoming new babies into the world. It is an experience of pure hopefulness to hold an infant in your arms and to gaze at their newly forming features. Every baby is perfect. They seem to hold limitless potential.

In the same way, I find it a deep privilege to be with people who are dying. This week I was honored to sit at the bedside of Eugene Kearley, who has been a member of this church for decades. He and his wife Clara were married here, after meeting on one of Gene’s many medical mission trips to Central and South America. Their daughter Carina was baptized here, confirmed here, taught Church School for three years, and married here in 2007. Gene has been in hospice care for more than a year, and his life on earth came to an end last night. It was beautiful.

We listened to hymns, we prayed, we shared stories and words from Scripture, we offered comfort to Gene, we blessed him and we let him go into the arms of God.

One story Carina told was especially touching. When she was in college, her father sent her a postcard almost every day. Many were vintage postcards from Europe which he had collected during his years in the Navy. He took these precious collectibles and mailed them off to Carina to let her know that he treasured her, that he was thinking of her, that he wanted her to feel his love – even from a distance. The postcards were tangible evidence of his commitment and care for her.

He treasured Carina in his heart, as Dr. Rodger Nishioka called us to do in his sermon last Sunday. Carina has preserved those postcards and framed them in glass, as a testimony to his treasuring her.

I notice my daughter in college keeps the postcards I send her each week, a tangible reminder of my love for her. Every two weeks I send a letter to my nephew Stephen, who is serving in the Army in Afghanistan, as a symbol that I treasure him in my heart each day.

It seems being born and dying feel much the same. In the time of birth, we struggle, we feel pain and we are completely powerless. But after the intensity of these moments comes a sense of peace, completion and union with God. So it is with death, which Jesus tells us is another form of birth. For whether we live or whether we die, we belong to Christ, who is Lord of the dead and the living.

May we treasure all these things in our hearts. (Luke 2:51) May we let people know they are treasured.