Hosted by A Cat-Like Curiosity, All Saints Day & My Devotional Thoughts. My post will center around my grandmother’s funeral yesterday.  A couple of things did happen that are work talking about.    First of all, the funeral went well, and it was a chance for me to say goodbye to my grandpa who died back in 1995.  I was married and living in Florida at the time.  I was never able to attend the funeral.  I was there for his last Christmas, but it was so hard not to be there.  I was so close to him.  While I was not as close to my grandmother, she was definitely in my corner.  I can remember some of her criticisms over the years, but they mean nothing compared to how much she really loved me and cared about me. I was asked to sing at her service, and my initial response was that I would not.  Why?  Well, my sister-in-law and two nieces are very critical of my singing, and I honestly figured many others would be as well.  I have been criticized so many times over the course of my life for my singing.  I am classically trained, but I have been told that I sing too loudly, too overpowering, too much expression, too something.  I have been compared to a dying cat, an opera singer (not in a flattering way), and so much more.  For this reason, I have dropped out of singing.  The vast majority of people encourage me to sing, but it is often those closest to me who give me the most grief.  It was easier to just stop singing. Wednesday night of last week, God got a hold of me.  My mom said that many people asked and hoped I would sing.  As God spoke to my heart, I realized that my grandmother was always supportive of this gift God gave me.  For her sake, I chose to sing.  And it was one of her favorite hymns–In the Garden.  I told them to put it in the program, and I decided to sing a capella. When I got up to sing, I almost lost it because my mom started crying.  But God empowered me in a special way, and I know there was something special that happened.  I was singing right behind her casket, and I truly believed that she heard me singing even from heaven.  And people so loved it.  I heard from people who I never remembered being complimentary before. This was the first time I have ever seen a family member laid out in a casket.  It was the closest I had ever been to a dead body.  Death has not been something I have dealt with much in my life.  My daughter even went up to see the body.  She is only ten, and it is her first experience with death.  I could definitely say that she was no longer in that body.  I am pretty convinced (though God only knows for sure) that she was saved and went to heaven. Speaking of all this, a dear college friend of mine passed away recently.  She was 40, and she had suffered with Lupus since she was in college.  She had outlived the doctor’s diagnoses many times over.  God reminded me last night that not only is she out of her pain (I know she’s in heaven), but she has been reunited with her unborn child that she lost.  She fooled around in college and got pregnant outside of marriage (and this was at a Christian college).  I didn’t know till later.  She lost the baby, and the doctors believe that traumatic body experience brought on her Lupus.  She was predisposed to it, but they say a traumatic experience can bring it on.  I am sure that the reunion between her and her child was amazing! And sad to say–I am not a Carrie Underwood fan, but her current single keeps running through my head.  “I will see you again, this is not where it ends.”  I’m glad I don’t know any more of the song, but it does speak to the current situation.