Episode 4: Preparing Their Hearts, Not Just Their Funeral

This week, I write with a heart full of anticipation and humility. My new mini-guide, Preparing Their Hearts, Not Just Their Funeral, will finally be available to purchase next week — a project that’s been quietly growing in me since just before Father’s Day 2025. I pray it brings comfort, courage, and clarity to every reader.

We spend so much time making sure the practical things are in order for our parents: legal documents, medical care, and funeral arrangements. We want to honor them well when the time comes. But what about the deeper work—the work that lasts beyond the flowers and the eulogies? Are our parents truly ready for eternity? Have we helped them find peace with God, with themselves, and with those they love? Are we, as their children, brave enough to have the conversations that matter....while there is still time?

This message has become especially real for me this week. I am about to have my own hard conversation with an elderly member of our family who is struggling to forgive a younger member. What moves me most is that the younger member took the initiative to apply Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 18:15-17 - going directly, seeking reconciliation, and inviting honest dialogue. I pray this conversation brings healing and peace for everyone involved. The hard conversations are rarely easy, but they are often the very place where God does His most beautiful work.

Preparing Their Hearts, Not Just Their Funeral is filled with stories like these—of parents who found peace, of families who found healing, and of children who gathered the courage to talk about faith, forgiveness, and forever. It asks us to reflect honestly:

• What is my relationship with my parents really like?

• Are there old wounds, habits, or silences that keep us from talking about Christ?

• Am I honoring my parents, not just in their passing, but in the way I love and encourage them today?

I’ll never forget the joy my mom experienced when her mother-in-law passed away many years ago — not because of the loss, but because she knew her mother-in-law had accepted Christ in her final days. My mom had gently, persistently guided her toward faith, praying and sharing the gospel until that beautiful moment of surrender. When her mother-in-law finally said yes to Jesus, it brought indescribable peace—not only to her, but to my mom and our whole family. There was deep comfort in knowing her story didn’t end at the grave but truly began with eternity.

If you’re hesitating to bring up faith, let me share something that has both challenged and comforted me: It is much easier to help someone find Christ here on earth than to face the heartbreak of the rich man in Jesus’ story in Luke 16:19-31. In that story, the rich man, tormented in the afterlife, begs Abraham to send Lazarus back to earth to warn his five living brothers so they don't end up in hell as he did. We don’t want to live with that kind of regret. As long as there is breath and opportunity, we can help our loved ones find the peace and hope that only Christ offers, before it is too late.

And remember, this is not just for our parents, it is for us, too. The apostle Paul writes, “For you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night... So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober.” (1 Thessalonians 5:2, 6) In walking this path with our parents, we’re also preparing our own hearts for the day we will meet the Lord.

If you’re reading this, don’t wait for the “right time.” Start the conversation. Share your faith. Listen with love. Pray for courage to be gentle but bold. Let’s not only prepare our parents for a final farewell, but help them (and ourselves) get ready for forever.

Is there a conversation you need to have with a parent or elder? What’s stopping you? Share your thoughts below. Sometimes, your story is exactly what someone else needs to find courage for their own.

Until the next drop, may love fill your days.

Olumide Evelyn Moronfolu

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Not At Their Funeral (Free Copy)

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