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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.
