Recently I found out something about me. I found out that I am a Taphophile.
If you are a Taphophile then you enjoy walking through cemeteries. I know that’s a little weird but stay with me here. Taphophile’s enjoy walking through cemeteries and reading the epitaphs that are written on the gravestones. When I walk through a cemetery I always wonder…. what are the stories of the people that lie beneath. And of course, it’s also humbling to know that one day I will go and reside where they are.
What I particularly enjoy as a Taphophile is reading the history of (famous) deaths. Whenever I read a biography, I always start in the back of the book first, because I want to know how a person died. To me the way a person died is just as fascinating as the way they lived. Some Taphophile’s will even go so far as to enjoy cleaning gravestones. This one gal who I follow on Instagram has over 70 thousand followers. Lady Taphos is her name and she began cleaning gravestones to help her get through a difficult divorce. She said,
“After I cleaned several graves, I started to learn that it was a work in progress.” She says, “It took 100 years or more for them to get into that condition, and it was going to take some time for them to look better. And it sort of became this metaphor for my own healing.”
I think there is something for us to learn from Lady Taphos, as it pertains to our own lives.
Some of you reading this have years and years of built-up neglect and old habits. And you have forgotten that you are a work in progress. You would like for change to come quickly in your life. Usually, it takes time to get to where you and God would like you to be. But I want you to know that as a follower of Jesus, He’s going to continue to clean you and me up until the day we die. Let me leave you with the words of Paul as he writes to the church of Corinth.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Cor. 5:17
It’s a good reminder that you and I as followers of Jesus are being made new in Jesus….we just have to believe it.