Yesterday we buried my dad’s worn out, diseased, and crippled body. It was great. Now, I need to stop and warn the faint of heart for a moment. I happen to love candor. I normally speak with a bit more candor than some are comfortable with, but this morning I am strongly inclined to speak with even greater candor…just a heads up for those who have no appetite for it.

It was great to gather around the grave as a family and speak with love and candor from our hearts about my dad’s life. It was real. It was true. We laughed. We cried. We retold old stories. We were given a few new stories. It was great! We truly rejoiced in seeing God’s overwhelming grace displayed in both my dad’s successes and his failures, as well as our own successes and failures over the years. Being reminded of what God can and did do in the lives of such sinful and weak people who love and trust Him is powerful and precious. It was great. It was fun! (Sorry, but this really is how I feel about it.)

Now for last night. The church was full. Everything went extremely well. Many men and women worked hard to pull it off. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. It was a glorious reunion with many old friends along with our new friends. We started time (an obsession for most Jordans). The glorious gospel of Jesus Christ was preached. We sang HIS praise. We ended on time. It was great. It was FUN. I’m sorry, but when asked many, many times after the service about what I thought or how I was feeling about it all, the truest answer from my heart was…it was FUN! It really was GREAT FUN to see many of the people who came to share in the service. It was GREAT FUN to share God’s particular grace to each of us in our own life stories with each other. It was GREAT FUN to have all our family together. It was GREAT FUN for me to have all of our children and grand children together (as it always is). It was GREAT FUN to laugh and cry together…or laugh until we cry! It is always the GREATEST FUN to see God clearly at work in real time, in real ways, in real love and power. It was fun.

Now, for even more candor…one of the things that I (and my brothers and sisters as well) have dreaded for many years in anticipating my dad’s funeral is this…How would I/we deal with the insincerity of those who would speak love to us at the funeral, who acted without love to us or to our dad over the years? This has been a long standing and weighty concern. I knew a few would come. I knew their hypocrisy would be painful to me, to us. It was something I worried about…so in typical Jordan fashion…it was something we joked about it private…which is our tension relieving mechanism to deal with such difficult things. So what happened? They did come. They said stuff… but the true love and joy of Christ, of our family, and of our spiritual family completely overwhelmed us, eclipsing the false with the true. God is so good. His grace is so powerful. It was GREAT FUN.

God is good.

P. Tim

So, last night at about 6pm, at home in a hospital bed, surrounded by family, my father quietly breathed his last and was received into glory. It was amazing. It was good. It was God’s perfect time. It was time. It struck me last night as I sat by his bed that a man who began life without love, without family, without God, ended his life surrounded by family, love, and the love of God. It’s a profound testimony to the indescribable grace and power of God. There is no other explanation.

So, when we gather next week at his memorial service, we will remember a man, but we will honor His Savior.

Thanks for your prayers,

P. Tim

Frequently when I am asked “How are you doing…or feeling?” , I respond by saying “It depends what I think about!” This may sound a bit evasive, but it is in fact quite literally true. I’ve explained it to my wife this way. It’s like channel surfing. Your emotions often change with the channel, from pleasure to pain, from frustration to hope, from interest to boredom, or from encouragement to annoyance.

The profound spiritual joy in that is that no matter what circumstances we face (over most of which we have little or no control), we can choose to put our focus on Christ…Isaiah 26:3 “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” Or, we can focus on the end rather the bumps, twists, and turns in the road, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
^“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, ¹⁸ as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

I’m reminded that this is a privilege that belongs only to God’s children. It’s one of His countless blessings to us for which I am truly grateful. Oh, and by the way, if I said something like this in an earlier blog, there are two obvious reasons for it. One, I do have the gift of redundancy. Two, It’s true even if it’s said a thousand times. Have a great day in the Lord.

In Him,

P. Tim