I thought about it last fall before a two-day hobby convention in September—our first in several years due to COVID. This trip was to neighboring Georgia, so not too far.
I remembered years ago being invited as part of the Alabama delegation to a Christian citizenship conference in Washington. I remember the exact year since I’ve often referred to a prayer breakfast we had with Chaplain Richard Halverson from the U.S. Senate. He said he didn’t hear many prayers for public officials in his itinerant Sunday visits, and I was convicted to do this more from the pulpit.
I also remember he invited two Southern Baptist senators, Al Gore of Tennessee and Trent Lott of Mississippi, to give greetings. We had no idea that a few months later Gore would be asked to join the Clinton presidential effort.
Anyway, back to the story, my D.C. flight was on a Saturday morning. I was ready to leave home when the phone rang. Margaret called to say her mother had died. Margaret’s mother wasn’t a member of our church, but I had visited with her in the nursing facility.
“Her funeral is Monday morning, and we want you to conduct it,” she said.
I explained that I was leaving town for an engagement and wouldn’t be back until later that week. I asked if my associate could help her on Monday. She acquiesced, so I called my associate to schedule this before I left.
I visited with Margaret when I returned the next week, and she expressed her disappointment that I couldn’t be with them the previous Monday.
We moved from that town, and it was probably ten years later when I saw Margaret while passing through the area. And she told me that she was still disappointed.
“You were a good pastor,” she said, “but I’m still upset that you wouldn’t help us when mother died.”
I tried to say discreetly that it wasn’t that I wouldn’t, but I couldn’t. But I learned this was fruitless, so I bid her farewell and Godspeed.
Every pastor struggles with scheduling. We want to be there for every crisis and every disappointment but sometimes this isn’t humanly possible.
Now I hasten to say most people are more understanding than Margaret and are willing to find an agreeable solution. And these days it’s even more true that funeral scheduling is negotiable. I conducted a funeral last year at the family’s request one month after the man’s passing.
Margaret decided to carry this burden no matter what. I think she took her disappointment to the golden streets.
God wants us to live in forgiveness and in harmony with others.
Life’s too short to hold grudges.
