A sound that filled my soul, all our ears and spirits, were bagpipes at our friend’s funeral. At first I looked into the sanctuary for a bagpiper, but it was a recording. Ah, but then the real live bagpiper came, ‘OUR bagpiper’, a personal bagpiper for her, you could say. Our church family spreads wide beyond the sanctuary’s zipcode and this bagpiper is the son of a friend bagpiper too. We do travel home here for funerals these days – many good souls that the Lord is calling home. Even if many of us find ourselves in other earthly church homes, me too, this particular church family of God’s “be the church” extends far and wide, eternally-linked and into Forever.

Really, aren’t we living for Forever? That’s what Pastor spoke of, in a beautiful service, ‘death is not the worst thing to happen’. Forever awaits.  And it’s going to be HEAVENLY – WITH GOD. 

Our bagpiper (or someone up front) said: “One last time…” – meaning a gift for our deceased…  and yet I thought is it a last time or a “lasting time”… Yes, many years we enjoyed seeing her beam at the bagpipes being played, which I remember at her Grandson’s wedding. She was beaming and blessed. That was a “lasting time” – because it was and is filled with memories.  And the other items that people spoke about her enjoying included this last trip to Canada that her sons talked about…  It was a “last time” but a “lasting time” as it is filled with memories. 

Our friend lived a long-term long time, she was 97 and full of serving in Spirit, from like Forever ago… She served the Lord AND the logistics of the Lord’s work, and she served smiling. She had a “forward look” into mission work and moving the Word of God into the world. She now lives in a “Lasting Time”…  Forever. Forever starts now – let us remember that too..

Forever, I thought, sitting in the pews with Forever friends, that Forever in Heaven must include bagpipes, right? 

How earthly things could be just a “last time” for like final “Amazing Grace” bagpipes at a funeral, but then we must play and pray our lives for the longing of the music of a “Lasting time”… that’s what’s so AMAZING about GRACE – God’s blessing of forgiveness to bring us home.

We love music now, just imagine the music of Heaven awaiting… 

Amen and Amen…