Some of you readers may not know that I am a Baptist preacher who has been preaching for many years, and have preached hundreds of funerals. Today we will do a little something different. I will share with you just a few of the foul-ups I have been involved in during funerals.

One of the times we try to be really careful to get things right is during a funeral, but unfortunately it doesn't always turn out that way.

I remember very well the day I conducted my first funeral service after getting a car with cruise control. I thought this will be great. I can just set the cruise control to the right speed and lead the funeral procession at a nice even speed. Well, that worked just fine in theory, but didn't turn out so well in practice.

That thing hung up somehow wide open. It was a big station wagon with a large motor and it began roaring like a jet plane taking off. I locked down the brakes, and they slowed it down to a low speed, but the motor was running wide open and I was crow hopping down the highway and couldn't get it to stop doing that. So I was forced to pull over to the side of the road and stop.

Half of the cars stopped with me. Some went on with the trip to the graveyard, others just scattered along the route and I scattered that funeral procession all the way between Murfreesboro and Auburntown.

I finally got it going again and brought those who were still with me on to the cemetery and joined the others. Was I embarrassed? Well yes. But we got them buried anyway.

I also remember well the day a drunk wobbled over to the grave just as I started to do the graveside service and with slurred words said, "Preacher I want you to sing "Where the roses never fade" for my friend."

I said, "Sir we won't have any singing at this one."

That seemed to satisfy him and he wobbled away. I can't sing even if I had known the words.. grin.

I did a funeral service at Woodbury, and there was to be two-hour delay before the burial at a large cemetery in Nashville, so we were told to meet there in two hours. I had never been to that cemetery, but found it with no trouble. The problem was that it was a huge graveyard and there were four different services going on at the same time and I had no idea which one was mine. So, I just pulled around through that large graveyard and asked each crowd who was being buried there. My funeral service had about given me up and was about to go ahead without me when I found it. I marched up there and without explanation conducted the service. I fooled most of the crowd, but a few of them were wise to me and still give me a hard time about it.

But the worst mess up happened just this past week. Since I didn't know exactly which drive to turn into, I followed the hearse to the cemetery and parked behind it. I was blocked in while they filled the grave, and I needed to go. It was pouring rain and everything was muddy and wet. I decided I probably had room to squeeze between the hearse and the grave yard. I didn't see any graves down the edge that close to the driveway.

All I saw was a little strip of red dirt where the grave diggers had scattered an extra wheelbarrow of dirt that was left over.

Well, you guessed it, that wasn't extra dirt. It was a fresh grave. And yep, right down in that grave the front end of my car went.

After they filled the grave a group came over and helped push me out of the grave. Yes a few were hiding their face and laughing at the preacher. I was just glad no one took a picture and had it sent into the TV station. It just wouldn't have looked good to see the preacher stuck in grannies grave.

God still loves us in our foul ups, and I am glad.