Two Cemeteries

Yesterday, I drove to the little town of Roe, Arkansas.  It has a population of just over 100, a post office, a community center and two cemeteries.  The two cemeteries is an important fact because I went to this little hamlet to perform a grave side service at "the" cemetery in Roe.  "You can't miss it, just look for the sign."

Well, I could miss it and I did.  The first person I saw in a pickup truck I asked for directions to the cemetery and he didn't know as he was there working on the railroad tracks, not from there.  I saw the little white post office and stopped in, thinking that whoever was running that office would surely know - she did.  In fact, she knew too much.  "Which cemetery?", she asked.  Two?  Two cemeteries in what was barely a one-horse town?  Yes, two!

"It's probably the one down the way," she went on to say.  She gave me direction that included turning just past a church, taking the second left and then right just before the woods.  Of course, it was not the right one and it was almost time to begin the service as I headed back to the post office.  I

I received a call from my office from the daughter of the deceased, wondering if I was going to make it since it was just about time to begin.  The receptionist gave me her number and I called, getting refined directions, that still included, "Just look for the sign."

I drove in and out of Roe for the second time, not seeing the sign.  I called her again, asking for clarification.  She asked, "Do you drive a little white car?"  I had driven right past the sign, the cemetery and the daughter standing by the sign.

I turned around for run number three, drove slow enough to replicate the speed of a shadow moving on a sun-dial and still did not see the sign, which was forty feet off the road, obscured by a tree and pointed in a direction, which required you be driving perpendicular to the road to read the 2 x 3 foot rectangle.  I did, however, see some flagging me down.

The daughter got in my car and we drove as far down the road as we could, parked and walked the other half of the way to the second cemetery, which was hidden by the trees.  The directions were accurate, as far as they went.  They did not include helpful information such as there were two cemeteries, that neither could actually be seen from the road and that the sign was obscured by a tree.

As important as it was to get good directions to the cemetery yesterday, there are much more important spiritual directions that we need to share, which too often we pass on without clear, accurate and sufficient information.  Our need, as we begin sharing the Gospel is to "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth" (2 Tim 2:15).  Jus' Say'n.