Strong people or people of strength?

It was not an easy memorial service to attend—not that any are. My friend Karen, diagnosed about two months earlier with pancreatic cancer, had died at age 58. But as remembrances filled the hour, a pastor told how he’d asked her if she had any regrets to settle before her death. Her answer: none. If any, it would be missing her son’s wedding by a month.

As I listened, I thought of my own father’s memorial and the unusual verse that his pastor had used for the meditation: “A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth” (Ecclesiastes 7:1). At the time, my hurt was so deep I didn’t know if I’d ever heal. My father had died just six months after my mother. He was 63, she was 59. I was 31 and still single.

Now, I see the wisdom of that statement. Our death is a statement, for good or for bad, of how seriously we have taken the gift of life. Karen invested for eternity in children she taught in a Christian pre-school and in her now-young-adult children, both serving God.

One of her teaching colleagues read a free-verse poem about “strong women” versus “women of strength,” found among papers in Karen’s Bible. I had received the same writing from someone via E-mail some years ago. As I heard it again, I realized it set the bar high for any of us who want to be women (or men) of godly strength.

In searching for it on the internet, I realized it is a copyrighted poem, so I will not quote it here. However, this site names the author and copyright date: http://www.motivateus.com/stories/strongwoman.htm

I think the strongest stanza is the last. It reminds us that when life throws us to the ground (and surely this happens when a loved one dies) we’ll never be “strong enough,” for it’s in going through those experiences with the help and love of God that we develop holy strength.

The Ecclesiastes verse comparing a good name to a fine perfume has its fuller explanation in 2 Cor. 2:14: “But thanks be to God, who...through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him.” It’s not just our good name, but how we honor the name of our holy and merciful God. And when a funeral brings us back to the basics—of trust in God for eternal life, which truly makes the day of death the best of all (for it’s the first day of eternal life)—then it is a good thing.

Next time, my own comparative list of characteristics of a woman of strength.