When you’re only 8 years old, it doesn’t take long for your entire life to flash before your eyes when you’re traveling down Route 93 at 55 miles per hour. But I remember it like it was yesterday. I was riding with my dad, Jerry and my step-mother, Debbie, in the front seat of the car (I always insisted on sitting in the front). My Dad was driving, I was on the passenger side near the door, and Debbie was between us.

Those of you from my generation and older might remember that sometime in the 70s, cars started coming with a new door mechanism that would automatically unlock the car door when you pulled the handle from the inside. In a moment of insanity, I became obsessed with the question of whether my Dad’s car had that nifty new feature. Instead of simply asking, I felt compelled to see for myself.

In case you’ve never experienced it, I want to let you know what an interesting sensation it was, seeing the road two inches from my face, whipping by at 55 miles per hour. I am convinced that the only reason I am alive today to tell you this story is because Debbie somehow managed get a hold onto the back of my pants, while my Dad was fighting to hold his grip on the back of her pants with one hand and control the steering wheel with his other hand. Needless to say, from then on I was relegated to the back seat.

Today, my dad and Debbie are no longer with us. On June 23, 2008, Debbie passed away suddenly, and on April 8, 2019, my dad rode off into the sunset. They have both now crossed over the threshold of mortality, and stepped through the door to eternity.

There is a question that often comes to my mind when someone I know has made this journey. I posed this question at Dad’s memorial service last month: “If Jerry Lawton could speak to us right now, from where he is today, what would he say? If he could go back to the last time he spoke to you, knowing all that he knows now, what would he tell you?” Here’s what I think:

After some witty and sarcastic comments, I think he would have some profound words of wisdom to impart to us. I believe he would tell us that all of our work, and all of our efforts, and all of the things we do to make ourselves more acceptable to God are empty and useless. True peace and joy, in this life and the next are the work of Christ, not of self. If you want true peace and true joy in this life, and in the next, it will not be found in loving yourself; it will not be found in promoting or serving yourself. The work of Christ begins where the work of self ends.

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

– Ephesians 2:1-9