Psalm 116:15
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.
Funerals are among the most sacred and spiritual meetings held in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On occasion those deaths can seem untimely—an infant, a young child, a teenager, a missionary, a young parent leaving an even younger family, and so forth. But even when lives have been lived long and fully, there is still a genuine loss at having them pass. This might be a spouse, a parent, or a grandparent, or it might simply be a friend or neighbor. On those occasions when we memorialize their lives and praise their names, it is appropriate, as the scriptures say, to “weep for the loss of them that die.”171
Tears at the passing of good people are the price we pay for love in this world. We realize how precious these people are to us and how precious their lives have been, so it is very easy to see why they are indeed “precious in the sight of the Lord.” In that sense, even as we feel such loss in our lives, how joyful it must be for that person, other loved ones, and the Lord Himself to have such a joyful reunion beyond the veil. Nothing is more “precious” than a humble, worthy, loving life. How grateful we should be, then, when the Lord will say to such an one, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: . . . enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”172 It is worth letting them go in order for them to behold that face and hear those words.
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