(Note from Shane: This is the eulogy I wrote for Kristi, which my friend Max Shearer read for me at Kristi’s memorial service)

Mrs. Scott

Kristi and I first met in an inauspicious way. I was a sophomore at Florida College, and was asked to be part of a service club that helped incoming freshmen move into the dormitories. I was assigned to a lady’s dorm, Sutton Hall, where I saw an enormous van from Illinois pull in. Little did I have any idea how profoundly my life would be changed by the gorgeous woman who stepped out of that van. Of course, it took a few years for that story to get going, but believe me, it was worth the wait.

Years later, after we were married, my friends who had never met Kristi would ask to see her picture, and their reaction was universal and unanimous. They would exclaim, “Your wife is beautiful!?!?” with an equal mix of admiration and astonishment! I couldn’t blame them – I was amazed as well.

Kristi was stunningly beautiful. And that wasn’t just my assessment. Many of you have said the same thing, either in person or on Facebook posts. Even total strangers found Kristi alluring, and on more than one occasion she received proposals from random guys while she was running errands. Once, after a trip to the grocery, as Kristi was putting bags in the car, someone who was pulling through the parking lot hit the breaks, put the car in reverse, rolled down the window, and yelled: “HEY – YOU GOT AN OLE MAN?!?” Fortunately, we were already engaged!

To be honest, I don’t blame that guy. I was mesmerized by Kristi’s beauty. It was almost embarrassing how many times a day I would just blurt out to her, “You’re beautiful.” Like the groom in the Song of Solomon, I couldn’t stop saying, “Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful” (4:1). Sometimes I would just have to turn my eyes away from her because I was so overwhelmed by her beauty.

Now, I recognize that “charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised”, as the proverb says. But as you know, Kristi wasn’t just beautiful physically; she also possessed what Scripture describes as the “imperishable beauty” of the “hidden person of the heart” (1 Peter 3:4). Even then, Kristi’s inward and outward beauty were uniquely connected. Throughout all of her treatments, and throughout the six years she fought cancer, Kristi was determined NOT to look like a cancer patient. That’s why people were always so surprised to learn just how ill she actually was. Even to the very moment of her passing, she was radiantly beautiful.

But to make this happen, in light of the physical toll the disease took on her, she had to put forth a concerted effort. In fact, in her last few days, Kristi wondered whether she had been vain to invest so much time in her makeup, clothing, and accessories. Of course, the mere fact that she was concerned about being vain shows that she was anything but that. I reassured her – and she knew deep down – that her effort to look outwardly beautiful in the face of this disease was a crucial part of maintaining her beautiful inward resolve, and of inspiring others in the process.

Kristi didn’t want to look like a cancer patient because she did not want to evoke pity. She wanted to instill courage, in herself and in others. That character, that inner beauty, simply flowed out of her to create her outer beauty. It’s the sort of character I wish I had. When I get a common cold, I want to the world to screech to a halt to pamper me! But Kristi was not self-seeking, even in a situation in which self-pity is frankly understandable.

And my only regret today is that I cannot adequately put into words just how glorious Kristi’s inner beauty actually was. She was so strong, so determined, so courageous. Throughout all the treatments and surgeries, in the face of almost constant diarrhea and the other indignities rectal cancer brings, an even on the brink of death, Kristi’s mantra was simple: “You do whatcha gotta do.” And while it was my job as her caregiver to support, encourage, and console her throughout her illness, she spent much more time supporting, encouraging, and consoling me than I ever did her. She had strength for the both of us.

Some of you may remember seeing a picture of Kristi that I posted just a little more than a month before she passed. She was on oxygen by that point, and found it difficult to walk very much. But she really wanted to use the vacuum in the living room, to feel the satisfaction of being able to still work around the house. So she sat down on the couch and ran the sweeper on our living room rug, all with a huge smile on her face. That captures the beauty of her irrepressible spirit. I can’t begin to tell you how much I admired her.

This doesn’t mean that our faith never wavered. Quite the contrary. We both felt waves of frustration, doubt, and even anger that our prayers were not answered in the way that we hoped. On September 11th, when we learned the clinical trial she was on was not working and that the cancer was rapidly progressing, we faced the darkest night of the soul we ever experienced. I am telling you this because I think of a lot of us who are believers assume that we are never allowed to feel this way, that it is impious to be so transparently honest with God.

But this just isn’t the case. Kristi and I began slowly reading through the Psalms in that bleak moment, and as we moved through the book, we could see the same heartbreaking despair that we were feeling, in passages like this one from the beginning of the tenth psalm: “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” Reading psalms such as this reminded us that a beautiful faith is not trusting in the absence of doubt, but trusting in the presence of doubt. And Kristi’s faith was beautiful.

And so was her love. Do you remember the story in Matthew 26 when Mary anointed Jesus in Bethany? Jesus rebuked the critical disciples who complained about the lavish display by saying, “She has done a beautiful thing to me.” If an outpouring of sacrificial love is beautiful, then Kristi showered me with beautiful love.

When you are single for a long time, as I was, you begin to wonder if you are just unlovable. I never quite understood why someone as elegantly beautiful as Kristi loved me. She teased me our entire marriage for the way I responded to her the first time she told me she loved me. We were at my apartment, and she very passionately said, “I love you,” and I very clumsily replied, “You do?!?” To this day, I don’t quite get it, but I’m grateful for her love, the greatest gift I have ever received apart from the love of God.

Kristi’s love reflected God’s love, which is active and giving. It wasn’t merely sentimental. It did not consist of mindless platitudes. She loved me at my fattest. She loved me at my sickest. She loved me at my sinfulest. She loved me at my worst, and she poured herself out to do it, even throughout this illness. “She has done a beautiful thing.”

At the very end of her life, Kristi told me that she had always felt inadequate as a “preacher’s wife.” She wasn’t comfortable speaking in public or teaching classes, which some preacher’s wives do exceptionally well. But I assured her, as I had our entire time together, that her gifts were no less vital or spiritual. Kristi was a servant. She cooked for others, cleaned for others, drove for others, cared for others, with the same beautiful touch that was a daily part of my life.

But I also told her that last weekend together that she had in fact taught many people, and in a much more meaningful way than I could. I assured her that by the power of her example of steadfastness in the face of this horrible disease, she had impacted countless lives. And as the messages, cards, and calls have flooded our family, you have confirmed that Kristi was a much greater teacher than I will ever be. Her life was her lesson, and it’s the most beautiful lesson I’ve ever seen.

I am sad today because there is so much more I wanted to learn from her. Kristi loved beautiful things: art, music, flowers, gems. And she seemingly had an encyclopedic knowledge of all of them. I loved going to museums with her to learn about what makes beautiful art, or driving through the country to learn about different flowers. I loved watching musicals with her, and was always amazed by her insights into what makes a beautiful song or a beautiful performance.

She also loved to make beautiful things. Watching her decorate cupcakes for Darby’s birthday, or our Christmas tree during the holidays, was truly like watching an artist at work. Whatever she did, it reflected Kristi’s elegant beauty. My only concern was why someone who valued beauty so much would ever want to be with me!

If you are like me, you grew up hearing about the importance of what is true and what is good, but not so much about the importance of what is beautiful. And yet, the greatest thinkers in history have taught that truth, goodness, and beauty are really just the same perfection viewed from different perspectives. If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. A beautiful pass from a quarterback is true to its target and results in a good play. A beautiful singer is true to the key of the music and thus creates a good performance. What is true and good is also beautiful.

This is why – in addition to teaching that God is true and good –the Bible frequently says that God is beautiful. The writer of Psalm 27 had one burning ambition: “to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.” The prophet Isaiah promised that someday the people of God “will behold the King in his beauty.”

For someone like Kristi who loved beautiful things, I can hardly imagine what she is experiencing right now as she gazes upon the beauty of the Lord.

And there is more to come. Right now, according to the Scriptures, Kristi’s soul and body are separated from each other. But some day, because of the redeeming work of Christ, Kristi’s soul will be reunited with a new body – one that is imperishable, glorious, and immortal. In other words, beautiful.

And while it broke my heart to say goodbye to my beautiful Kristi, my hope is that her greatest beauty is yet to come, that as the Scripture says in Isaiah 62:3, she will be a “crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord.”

And just as she will receive a new body, she will inhabit a new heavens and earth, pictured as having exquisite jewels, a crystal river, and the tree of life. In other words, the most beautiful existence we can imagine. It will be beautiful because we will dwell in the presence of the One who is the source of all beauty, the One who is Beauty itself.

But for now, while Kristi’s spirit is in the presence of Christ, her physical remains have returned to the dust from which they came. Which leads me to a story that sums up all that I loved about Kristi.

The last morning we spent together, I could see that the end was coming, and because things declined so quickly, we had not had time to talk about this service very much. I knew that she wanted to be cremated, but not much more.

So, I said to her, “Kristi, I know you want to be cremated, but we’ve never really talked about what you want me to do with the remains. So, I’ll list some choices, and you just squeeze my hand when it’s the option you want.”

I started by asking if she wanted me to spread the ashes somewhere she loved, like Hawaii or the mountains; then if she wanted me to find a mausoleum; or to bury them in Illinois or Tennessee or Florida. None of these options was what she wanted.

Last of all, I proposed that I just keep them at home – and at that suggestion, she squeezed my hand. Then she looked up, locked her eyes with mine, smiled, and said: “To bother you.”

What a beautiful person, what a beautiful woman, what a beautiful spirit.

So for now, we wait, and Kristi will “bother” me. But some day our wait will be over. There’s a beautiful passage in the love poetry of the Song of Solomon in which the bride-to-be longs for the summons of her groom. Since the relationship of God and his people is often portrayed as that of a husband and wife, through the centuries, many believers have applied the message of the book to this divine relationship. And here is how the groom tenderly calls for his beautiful bride:

“Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
and come away,
for behold, the winter is past;
the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of singing has come.”

Kristi, I loved you bigger than the sky, but the One who loves you beyond all measure, and who will make you more beautiful than I can fathom, will raise you to new life, to come away when the winter is past, the rain is gone, the flowers bloom, and the time of singing has come.

The Sunday after Kristi died, I visited our previous church family in Nashville so I could see those who loved Kristi but wouldn’t be able to be here today. The preacher that morning spoke on a passage from 2 Corinthians 1, in which Paul expresses his desire in verse 14 “that on the day of our Lord Jesus you will boast of us as we will boast of you.” Now, we all understand that our ultimate ground of boasting is only in the Lord, but at the same time, we also see Paul’s point that it is appropriate to honor what our loved ones in Christ have done by his power.

And, Kristi, I can’t wait to brag on you when that day comes.

Over the last few days, Kristi and I have been reading a wonderful book called A Grace Disguised. A good friend of mine recommended it to me years ago, and I promptly purchased it, only to leave it untouched on the shelf ever since. But Kristi suggested that we read something encouraging and that book popped into my mind. We have been immensely blessed by it so far.

The author, Jerry Sittser, faced sudden and catastrophic loss when a drunk driver hit the van he was driving, killing his wife, his youngest daughter, and his mother. Three generations – wiped out in an instant. Making matters worse, when the case went to trial, the drunk driver’s attorney managed to get him off. Can you imagine experiencing the nightmare of such a tragedy and then a miscarriage of justice?

It isn’t fair!

There isn’t anything fair about a father losing a daughter, or husband losing a wife, or a son losing a mother. There isn’t anything fair about Kristi’s battle with rectal cancer at such a young age and less than a year into our marriage. And you have your stories to share that painfully illustrate the unfairness of life.

But as Sittser described his own frustration with the unfairness of his loss, he made a point that really resonated with us. Just as it is the case that we experience many tragic losses that are unfair, we also enjoy many gifts in life that we do not deserve. Life, love, joy, beauty. Merit has nothing to do with any of these things. They are displays of God’s grace. As Sittser writes:

So, God spare us a life of fairness! To live in a world of grace is better by far than to live in a world of absolute fairness. A fair world may make life nice for us, but only as nice as we are. We may get what we deserve, but I wonder how much that is and whether or not we would really be satisfied. A world with grace will give us more than we deserve. It will give us life, even in our suffering.

We read that paragraph Tuesday night. The next morning, Kristi had an appointment with a chiropractor. As we started to load up, we noticed that our garage door was broken – one of the rollers was mangled. I had tried to fix it, but in a display of my typical mechanical ability, I failed. In the midst of all our stress, it doesn’t take much of a straw to break the camel’s back, and when I saw that the door was broken, I became unhinged (!).

After Kristi’s adjustment, we decided to pop by a Krispy Kreme donut shop because they were giving out free pumpkin spice donuts. But when we pulled into the drive-thru, we learned that the giveaway was the day before. The person on the other end of the speaker then said, “But I’ll go ahead and give it to you anyway.” And then when we pulled up to the window, she decided to give us several more for no charge (Kristi had a neck brace on from the adjustment, so we joked later that we got the free donuts because she looked so puny!).

I realize a few free donuts isn’t much in the scheme of things, but that day, at that moment, it was a blessing. And it got us to thinking about how many blessings we received that day that were totally undeserved. Earlier in the morning, we obtained a coupon to reduce our copay for a new drug to zero – and the pharmacy took the initiative to make sure we knew about it. Kristi’s adjustment was free because our chiropractor is a dear friend from church who had employed Kristi part-time for the last four years. And last night another great friend from church gave us some delicious mini-bunt cakes (we ate well yesterday!).

Life indeed is not fair. Sometimes we face that which is cruel and heartbreaking. But sometimes we receive generous and uplifting gifts that remind us of the good we do not deserve. This is why it is so important to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18), to see that our lives are not totally defined by loss and pain, and that to ask “Why me?” is not only appropriate when we suffer, but also when we are blessed.

(Today I was privileged to speak in the chapel service of my alma mater, Florida College. Here are my remarks.)

I’ll be reading from the end of Psalm 88:

¹³ But I, O Lord, cry to you;
    in the morning my prayer comes before you.
¹⁴ O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?
    Why do you hide your face from me?
¹⁵ Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,
    I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.
¹⁶ Your wrath has swept over me;
    your dreadful assaults destroy me.
¹⁷ They surround me like a flood all day long;
    they close in on me together.
¹⁸ You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;
    my companions have become darkness.

Since the time that I was a student here, more and more of our hymnals have incorporated actual psalms from the Old Testament, which I think is wonderful. But there is a category of psalms that – so far as I know – our hymnals never include. Psalms like this one – songs of deep mourning and anguish, called psalms of lament. I’ve never sung a hymn in church that concludes, “Darkness is my only friend – period.”

And yet when God gave his people a book of praises to use in worship, he filled that book with psalms like this one. And remember, these were primarily used in Israel’s collective worship in the temple. Even the psalms that sound personal, like Psalm 88, were designed to be sung with those gathered at the house of God, just like we typically sing songs that are individualistic – like “I am Resolved” – in the assembly with other Christians.

But even as our hymn editors have added more and more selections straight out of the Book of Psalms, they seem to have deliberately avoided using songs of mourning like the ones God gave to Israel.

My guess is that we just aren’t very comfortable with talking to God like these psalmists did, or like Job did. It is easy for us to delude ourselves into thinking that church is for people who are just blissfully traipsing through life, and that worship is only for those who sing a joyful noise to the Lord.

This is just not true, however, and more importantly, it is insidiously dangerous. Because real life is filled with pain, with loss, guilt, sorrow. And if I imagine that in order to worship I can’t be in this kind of inescapable anguish, then what I have to do is try to tuck away that grief in a corner of my heart where God won’t see it. And once we start to imagine we can hide things from God, we are on the road to catastrophic spiritual failure.

Job’s Despair, by William Blake

God gave his people psalms like this one because he wants us – all of us – all of what we are going through – including our hurts and fears. And he is big enough to allow us to speak to him with complete transparency. In the case of Israel, he wanted them to come and do this in the place where his presence was most immediate and accessible – the very temple itself. And through Christ, he invites us to come boldly to the throne of grace and cry out to him with the honesty of our broken-heartedness.

And God wants us to do this together. He wants us to “weep with those who weep,” as Israel did when it sang these psalms. He wants us to realize that we are not isolated in our despair, but that right alongside us are many others who are traveling the same road.

When you read or pray or sing a psalm like this one, you are being reminded that other children of God have faced what you face, have felt what you feel. And just that realization – that you are not suffering alone – is itself a comfort.

Several years ago when I was still single, one of my best friends invited me to be part of his wedding. I was thrilled for him, but I knew that when I went I would face the inevitable barrage of questions from our friends – “So when are you gonna get married?” On top of that, I had come to know a wonderful young lady, who was beautiful in every way, but who I knew would never see me as anything other than a friend. And sure enough, I got a bunch of the “so when are you gonna get married” questions, and each time it only made me sadder as I thought about the girl who I couldn’t have.

I had a long drive home, and as this frustration ate away at me, a song came to mind that I had to find. So I pulled off the road and went into a music store to find it. I picked up a Michael Buble cd, put it in the car, and heard these words:

You give your hand to me
And then you say hello
And I can hardly speak
My heart is beating so…

Oh I am just a friend
That’s all I’ve ever been
Cause you don’t know me

Now, the version I really wanted was by Ray Charles, because – no offense to Michael Buble – that white boy hadn’t suffered enough! I needed the voice of someone whose life-time experience of oppression and injustice gave his voice the sound of a wail!

Why did I need that song? Because it reminded me that I’m not alone, that others have felt the same frustration – and if he could sing about it, then maybe somehow he got through it.

God wants us to know that the darkness is not our only friend, and that we are not alone, because we can be honest with each other, and most of all, with him.

So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” (John 11:47-50)

The Catholic Church is facing yet another major sex abuse scandal, and the response of the church’s leadership has been profoundly disappointing. While many Catholic lay members, priests, and bishops have called for full disclosure, the Pope and his allies have circled the wagons. Indeed, the upper-level leadership of the Catholic Church has displayed far more interest in attacking those within the church calling for transparency than in addressing the issue of gross immorality.

Even though I am not a Catholic, my heart is broken over this crisis, for several reasons. First and foremost, any time children and young adults are exploited by those who should be protecting them, a profound evil has taken place. Second, I have many devout Catholic friends who are deeply grieved over this fresh wave of scandals, and who feel frustrated that the Pope is stonewalling. Third, I know that many people in the secular world essentially equate the Catholic Church with Christianity, and in their minds, anything that undermines the credibility of the church also discredits Christianity – period.

There is an underlying issue behind this particular scandal that has implications far beyond the parochial concerns of the Catholic Church, however. That issue is the perennial temptation to sacrifice principle for the sake of power.  The survival instinct of institutions is so compelling that it seduces even the most sincerely intentioned into betraying the very principles the institution was founded to preserve. That is what is happening in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, and it is what is happening all across our cultural landscape.

It is especially easy to see this taking place in the realm of politics. I vividly remember the outrage that many high-profile evangelicals (Robertson, Dobson, Falwell) expressed about Bill Clinton’s lack of character during the Lewinsky scandal in 1998. Less than twenty years later, many of those same outspoken critics of Clinton’s “character deficit” were full-throated supporters of Donald Trump. Why such a dramatic about-face? The answer is simple – power. Bill Clinton did not offer evangelicals political power, while Trump has. And so, with a few exceptions, the Robertsons/Dobsons/Falwells of the world have traded their birthright of principle for a pottage of power.

The same is true in reverse, of course. The vast majority of those on the Left, including many feminists, defended Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky affair (one went so far as to say she would happily service the president so long as he kept abortion legal) even though he clearly exploited his position to garner sexual favors from a young female staffer. But when Donald Trump ran for president, many on the left suddenly had a change of heart regarding Bill Clinton’s behavior.

The lack of principled conviction is not exactly a recent development in the realm of politics. But I do fear that we have seen the near-total erosion of truth-tellers in American politics. There are a few people in public life who are willing to critique their own party and those who share their own ideology (during the Clinton scandal the liberal law professor Jonathan Turley was a shining light of conviction, and during the Trump candidacy Baptist seminary president Al Mohler was unwavering in his criticisms). But the ranks of people like the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan or Howard Baker in politics are thinning rapidly.

We expect the unprincipled pursuit of power in the realm of politics. When it happens in the name of Christianity, the betrayal of truth for power is grotesque. Over the weekend, Pope Francis preached a homily in which he obliquely justified his refusal to answer questions or produce documents related to the sex abuse scandal by referring to Christ’s silence in the face of his accusers. This is a repugnant defense, and it should be an outrage to everyone who loves the name of Jesus. The Lord was not silent in the face of genuine inquiries into the possible abuse of children. To the contrary, he warned:

Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. (Matthew 18:5-6)

To be sure, using the name of Christ to cloak the scandalous is not unique to Catholicism. It happens in evangelicalism all the time (for Exhibit A, check out Creflo Dollar), even in hundreds of small churches with two-bit dictators who act more like Diotrephes than disciples (see Third John 9-10). Power corrupts nowhere with a more corrosive effect on the soul than in churches.

This was the issue in John 11. The Jewish leadership faced the choice of power vs principle when they heard of Jesus’ miracles – especially the raising of Lazarus. When the Sanhedrin convened at the end of John 11, the Jewish court was in a dilemma. It could accept the truth of Jesus’ kingship, potentially incurring the wrath of Rome and the subsequent loss of power, or it could cover up the truth by eliminating Jesus, thus pacifying the Romans and preserving their own place of power. The Jewish leaders chose power.

Ironically, this power did not last very long. The Romans came and took away their place and nation just a few years later. Power corrupts, and what is corrupt does not survive. Institutions that sacrifice conviction for prosperity ultimately lose both.

When the psalmist asked who would be among those who would enjoy the presence of God, the answer came back: one who “who swears to his own hurt and does not change” (Psalm 15:4). The one who will dwell on God’s holy hill possesses an integrity that remains uncorrupted even when prosperity, status, or life itself may be the price. It’s the person who puts principle ahead of power,  who loves God more than anything else, who will, in the end, be with the One they love forever. And eternity with God is worth any price.

Just a little bit ago I posted this video to Facebook. It is a “public service announcement” for your physical health and your spiritual health.

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting! (Psalm 139:23-24)