Laughter and Sadness

 

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Proverbs 14:13 Easy-to-Read Version

¹³ Laughter might hide your sadness. But when the laughter is gone, the sadness remains.

 

My wife and his wife were good friends. Sylvia had encouraged Edna to publish a picture book of Biblical women. She had edited the book for her. She had even chosen to write a moving novella on the tragic life of Rizpah, one of Saul’s concubines, because of this picture book.

When Edna’s husband Leroy was cruelly struck by Parkinson’s disease and finally succumbed to it, I attended his memorial service. I had really not known Leroy, so I listened to the tributes paid to him by his children, his friends, and several of his pastors with great interest. I realized that He loved a good joke. A former pastor spoke of how he relied on the chuckles that Leroy sent him to lighten up his sermons, week by week.

We laughed with the speakers, but in the back of my mind I realized that behind all of the humor, there was a pervasive sadness. His family went home that night. The merriment was gone at 3:00 in the morning, just the aching void left in their lives.

The majority of us in the church that Sabbath, were people who were there to support the family. A funeral is where family members come, not only to pay their last respects, but to see others in the family. Others whom they may have not seen in many years, but really wish they had kept up with over the years. Family ties and bonds are renewed. Many old personal injuries, real and perceived are laid aside, as petty or meaningless from this distance. On some rare occasions old animosities resurface—which I do not believe is happening in Leroy’s family.

Help us in honor and brotherly love to prefer one another above ourselves. 

 

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[1] https://www.myfarewelling.com/article/how-to-plan-a-funeral