10-12-2025
When You’re Gone
During a recent Christian men’s fellowship breakfast the speaker asked, “If this church closed the doors permanently would the community around us notice?” What he was saying was, are we making a difference in our community by what we are doing for God (would our absence create a vacuum)?
Later that same day I went to a celebration of her life funeral for a young mother, the victim of domestic violence. I didn’t really know her personally but have known her parents for more than 30 years. The last time I remember seeing this 33 year old young lady was as a baby. The mother lamented over the loss of her daughter while the father said God loved her way more than he ever could. Their pain was great.
As I sat at the funeral home looking around I could see those impacted by her. To me there were many strangers, then I began seeing church and former church members whom I recognized, a familiar face here, and another one or two there. Not all the names came to me at the time, some after I had returned home. As I contemplated over the events of the day I wondered what kind of an impact I had left on them. Did they see Jesus or did they just see me?
A lot has changed over the years and the old church has gone, its members scattered among churches in our community or elsewhere. I remember the good times the weddings, new baby dedications, baptisms and of course the funerals. It was a different world before 9/11/2021 and today the world is still changing, as are the people living in it. It’s been said “The only constant in life is change”.
Back to the men’s fellowship where we talked about telegraphing to the world around us what we are against – sin in its many forms, when we should be showing the love of Jesus through the life we live for HIM to everyone we see or who see us. We proudly have our Christian bumper stickers, our necklace with a cross and our temper that let everyone know, but do our actions and our life tell the real story?
We who believe and follow Jesus know that the real constant in life is the God who creates life and has created the universe so vast we can’t imagine, yet small enough that it fits in the palm of HIS hands.– RTM
The Real Truckmaster 