selmerfan
03-09-2013, 09:57 AM
First of all, good idea here! In 30 minutes I'm headed off to lead a funeral. The middle child of one of my congregational patriarchs, small country church, 4 surviving siblings. Lots of dysfunction - abuse and addictions - in the families of the kids and grandkids of the patriarch, and as you may or may not know, family deaths bring dysfunctions out of the woodwork. Please pray for the family of Wally and please pray for me as I guide them through the painful death of a son, brother, father, and uncle who suffered for 40 years with unimaginable guilt and crawled into a bottle to escape. In the end he was ready to get help, to enter treatment, to turn around, but his body was too broken. I don't lose it frequently as I lead and preach at funerals, but it will be a given today. I never thought that I would use the parable from the end of Luke 15 (often mis-named "The Prodigal Son" I call it the Prodigal Father or Prodigal God) for a funeral, but here we go.