When Life Gets Celebrated
In nearly every memorial service that I’ve either attended or officiated, the stated objective was to “celebrate” the life of the departed, and this week was no exception as I joined nearly two hundred people to celebrate the life of a very special lady that left behind a legacy of love, devotion, and rich friendships. As I was preparing for her service, however, I was struck with the thought that a life isn’t truly celebrated at a funeral—it’s celebrated while it’s being lived.

Although we appropriately speak kind, honoring words at memorial services, we all know that a glowing celebration service can’t make up for a life of missed opportunities. To truly celebrate a life, it must be celebrated in its living. Ecclesiastes 7:2 tells us, “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting” because it is in times of reflecting on life that we can re-prioritize how we want to live our life. Let’s make fresh commitments to truly live the lives we’ve been given. Regardless of whether our lives have turned out the way we had hoped or not, let’s live them to the fullest. Let’s leave no ‘thank yous’ or ‘I love yous’ unsaid. Let’s live in a way that will make our memorial service mere formality, a postscript on a life well lived.