Eulogy

Our friends dear wife gave the eulogy at the funeral. She shared about the man behind the pulpit and how God saved him and used him during his 31 years of life. She spoke about how from Wednesday to Friday she was praying over him and reading scripture to him. There was one passage in particular that God kept bringing her back to, Psalm 116:15 that says, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." She said, "Sometimes I could read it over him and sometimes I couldn't." Friday night as she came home and went into her husbands study with a flood of questions in her soul she picked up Charles Spurgeons commentary "The Treasury of David" and turned to verse 15 of Psalm 116 and read...

Verse 15. "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints, and therefore he did not suffer the Psalmist to die, but delivered his soul from death. This seems to indicate that the song was meant to remind Jewish families of the mercies received by any one of the household, supposing him to have been sore sick and to have been restored to health, for the Lord values the lives of his saints, and often spares them where others perish. They shall not die prematurely; they shall be immortal till their work is done; and when their time shall come to die, then their deaths shall be precious. The Lord watches over their dying beds, smooths their pillows, sustains their hearts, and receives their souls. Those who are redeemed with precious blood are so dear to God that even their deaths are precious to him. The deathbeds of saints are very precious to the church, she often learns much from them; they are very precious to all believers, who delight to treasure up the last words of the departed; but they are most of all precious to the Lord Jehovah himself, who views the triumphant deaths of his gracious ones with sacred delight. If we have walked before him in the land of the living, we need not fear to die before him when the hour of our departure is at hand."

She closed the eulogy by saying, "My husband didn't die prematurely, his work was done here on earth, and when he passed away Friday morning, God smoothed his pillow and his death was precious in His sight."

She reminded me of a young Elisabeth Elliot as she spoke with clarity and grace about the loss of her husband. And for the time that we sang, cried, and remembered him, it was done all in the understanding that we serve a good and faithful God who is infinite in his understanding, and it is in him that we place our trust. How unexpected it was to have the one who lost the most, be the one to bring the most comfort and peace through speaking.