It is a little town in south central Kentucky. Russell Springs. Both of my parents were born and raised there. You didn't stray far from Russell Springs. Of course, the kids went to school, but most dropped out after the eighth grade because in Kentucky you could do that, back in the day. There was farming to do, or other jobs related to farming. And there was moonshine to be made, animals to be hunted and fish to be caught. My father had seven brothers and sisters and my mother had ten, so I had a lot of cousins. My father's siblings dispersed some from where they grew up (WWII was mostly the cause of that), but my mother's family mostly stayed close to home. A couple of adventurist types wound up in Ohio and Indiana, but as a rule, they stayed in the hills. When I was a child and we traveled to Kentucky, it seemed my folks knew everyone. Every hill had a story, every creek held a memory, every old barn had some event tied to it.

I used envy those memories. I didn't have my cousins close by. That part of family was missing. I couldn't go down to the swimming hole with my friends (my mother was terrified of water). We weren't hauled off to church every week to hear a rip snorting hell fire and brimstone message. We farmed, but it was never a 'real' farm like a Kentucky farm. What I wanted most in life was to marry a local girl and settle down in my hometown, where I knew everyone and where I 'belonged.'

That didn't happen, of course. The Lord intervened. Following His leading, I have lived in Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Indiana and Ohio. But the Lord has given me experiences and memories to carry me through to the day I die. And most of you are part of those memories. Good memories, too. You are all so precious to me.

I took a drive in the country the other day and saw a cemetery that sparked a memory. Having pastored churches and having worked with a funeral home, I have a lot of cemetery memories, some good, some not so good. Funerals done in all the states listed above, and some other states, as well. Beautiful days and nasty days. On hilltops and on flat ground. Bees, oh my! And a couple of times cicadas swarming those gathered. The extremely old and the extremely young and every age in between. The sadness of feeling the deceased was lost to the Lord and the joy of knowing the deceased was walking the streets of glory. And most of all these deceased buried in a cemetery.

I love to walk cemeteries. To see the headstones and imagine the stories. There are several places purported to be the tomb of Jesus. I would like to go back in time and walk the cemetery where Jesus was truly buried. I like to walk a cemetery before daylight, so I would like to walk that cemetery Early in the morning, on the first day of the week, walking along and admiring the tombs. Then, the earth shakes. Not all that unusual, for the area, but the air feels different. There are sounds of fear. Rushing toward the sounds I find men, guards, lying on the ground. A stone has been rolled away and.....well, you know the rest of the story. But wouldn't that be a great memory? A story to tell! 

My memories of cemeteries are not that awesome. But each of those in those graves I have stood over will one day stand before the Lord. It doesn't matter if you are buried in Arlington National Cemetery or in a cemetery attached to a little church in Russell Springs, Kentucky, you will stand before the Lord. And what will the Lord say to you?