I recently had the honor and the sorrow (yes, at the same time) of being at the Memorial Service for my friend’s 24-year-old son, Jason.

Let there be wailing and the gnashing of teeth.

Death is wrong.  I hate it.  God hates it, too.

The service was holy.  And I do mean h.o.l.y.  Grieving his passing.  Celebrating his life.  Thankful for the truth that there is an Act IV coming when all will be restored.  No more goodbyes.  Ever.

I hate goodbyes.

But here’s the thing. 

At his service, nothing was shared about how Jason did or did not pick up his room.  If he made his bed.  Put his toys away.  Nothing about how old he was when he was finally and fully potty trained.  Not a word about his grades, his degrees or his titles. 

Tons was shared about how people felt in his presence.  There were lots of stories about his sense of humor.  Words flowed about how he loved people, how he lived passionately from his heart and the joy he brought by being and offering his unique, quirky, imperfect, wonderful, on-the-road self.

It was his heart that mattered.  And it’s yours that matters.

How are you doing today?  How’s your heart?  How are you treating your heart?  Are you being kind?  Encouraging?  Loving?  To yourself?  Jesus wants you to be.  We are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves.  The thing is – we will.  We will love others as we love ourselves. So if we are merely harsh on ourselves…we will be harsh to others whether we want to be or not.  It will leak out.

How we treat our hearts is the way we will treat others.

And it matters.