The One who gives life

By Jeff Becraft

Yesterday I went to a funeral.

The place was jam packed, the music was beautiful. As I sat there, I thought about how it is good to go to funerals sometimes.

Funerals have a way of cutting through some of the things that begin to densify on the surface our lives – opinions, to-do lists, anxieties, what we think is most important, prejudices, daily responsibilities, etc. – and gets us to focus back on what is most important… Life.

The mixture of emotions – sadness, reflection, evaluating our own lives, hope, glory, seeing old friends and family members we haven’t seen in a long time…all going on at the same time.

The funeral was for Rev. John Holler. Among other things, Rev. Holler was the head of Epworth Children’s Home for many years at a time when he was really needed. Back in the Fairway Outreach days of my life, I was involved with Epworth for over 12 years on a weekly basis, and sometimes multiple times a week.

Rev. Holler actually came after my era of involvement but I still somehow got to meet him and got to know him. The most I ever talked with him was being at a conference for childcare workers and I got to have breakfast with him and his wife one morning before the sessions started.

Everything they said about John Holler at the funeral was absolutely on target.

Everyone talked about how he was the real deal. He was a loving person, he was kind, he was gentle, he was patient, he was forbearing with others.

He was unpretentious.

Even though he was a great leader, as one speaker stated, “If you were ever in his presence, you never felt intimidated.”

In fact, as I described it to one person at the reception, when you talked with Rev. Holler, you walked away feeling like you were the more important person.

That’s the way he was. And that is great leadership.

Governor McMaster spoke at the funeral also and in 2021, he had awarded John the Order of the Palmetto, the highest award you can give to a citizen in South Carolina.

In his comments about Rev. Holler, he said that if John Holler ever ran for public office, he would be the only politician that no one could find anything bad to say about him. The audience laughed… and everybody in the audience knew that it was absolutely true.

If it is the time for one to say goodbye to this life, it is certainly a glorious time of year to do it. When the women closest to Jesus went to the tomb to find a dead body but instead found the tomb empty and Him fully alive, they ran back to tell His other friends. But the others did not believe them. They considered what they were saying as nonsense… a fairy tale. That can’t possibly be real.

When we go to a funeral, the absence of a loved one… it doesn’t get any more real than that.

And for John Holler? As one older gentleman commented to me in the stairwell, “He is in Good Hands now.” And John would say himself, in his humble and unpretentious way, that it is not because he was a good man – but that he did not consider the good news nonsense but entrusted his life to the One who gives life.

Jeff Becraft is the Director of Our Place of Hope located in Columbia, South Carolina, where people find encouragement to regain meaning, purpose, and hope for their lives. Jeff has dedicated much of his life to helping shift the vision of people’s lives. If you would like Jeff to speak to your group or event, you can connect with him at  [email protected].