Precious Ones of God

Today we went to the funeral of a friend, Larry Jaramillo. He was a sweet man. He was 41 years old, and like my Jared (my nephew), he was a special needs person. He had Parkinson's and was mentally disabled. He died in a car accident Monday on I-40.

The funeral was so beautiful, most of Edgewood showed up. Let me tell you, Edgewoodians heard the gospel preached today. It is hard to miss when the person you are burying was constantly thankful to God for the life he had. I really believe that people like Larry and Jared are guiless and really have the heart of Christ. Neither one of those boys would ever miss the chance to ask about every one of the family members by name. Every time Larry would see Bryan he would say, even 15 years after the fact, "I am sorry about your dad, Bryan." He knew how to love, that is for sure. I think that we all tend to forget the crud about people when they die but I think that Larry's life really didn't have much crud.

When Jared died in March, we eulogized him and remembered his love for people. He was so beloved by all who knew him. After his funeral, I was trying to think of the times that I had seen Jared be selfish or thoughtless but I couldn't recall much. The only times were when he was really sick and even then he was never rude. I think special people have such simple hearts that they are never looking for evil anywhere. They have no ugliness inside of themselves so they are surprised when they see it in other people. Jared, like Larry, was accepting of people and was never shy about expressing his faith or his concern for others.

I wish that we could all be comfortable with the special people. If we all spent time with one of them each week we would find that life is a lot more beautiful than we think it is and that people are really a lot more beautiful than we think they are.