When I Breathe My Last Breath

Okay so that sounds really morbid, but it is an event on the calendar of every member of our human family. We all know it and most of us avoid even thinking about it until we are knocking on that black-shrouded door. What will I leave as a legacy for my family and friends to remember me by?
Solomon wrote - "Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath (or death), but righteousness delivers from death." Proverbs 11:3 NIV
"When a wicked man dies, his hope perishes; all he expected from his power comes to nothing." V:7
"The wicked man earns deceptive wages, but he who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward." V18
Recently I was asked to speak at the funeral of someone I have known and loved since high school. Her children had very good things to say about her which I shared with those gathered to honor her memory. Those are words that we would expect to hear at such a gathering of loved ones who are grieving their loss. That's a good thing.
However, I read a portion of Psalm 103 and talked a bit about the Fatherhood of our
God and how at times like this, we all want to feel somehow connected to each other and to God our Father.
Here's the point. To the grieving family, the fact that their mother loved them and enjoyed cooking, gardening, fishing, camping etc. is important to them because each of them has their own cherished memories connected to those shared moments. I urged them to hold those memories close because they help us to grieve in a positive way. However to their mother, none of those activities are of much importance now. What IS important to her now is the presence of her Father and his love.
On the day I breathe my last breath, how well I cooked or gardened or whatever, will hold NO level of importance to me. How much wealth I amassed or how many professional degrees I acquired or how many monuments I built will not even be on my radar. Whoever conducts my funeral service will probably say a few nice things about me and my family will have their own memories to comfort them. But me? I'm looking in the face of the One who willingly and violently gave his life to give me a new name, a new hope, a new home. I love the Mercy Me song, "I Can Only Imagine" because it was introduced to me by my daughter Michelle several years ago and because it expresses my anticipation of an event I can't even begin to anticipate.
That doesn't mean I won't have any thoughts or feelings about my family and friends left behind. But I don't think I will be sad to have left them because I know I will be with them again. However they probably won't be "my family", we will all be God's family - together - forever!
Even though I've been through the funeral experience hundreds of times, I always come away from it with a new sense of my own mortality and God's promised immortality. The two words that impress me most are GRACE and HOPE. Jesus died to give me the gift of both and the day I breathe my last breath, they will be enough!