His work is seen by many in the oddest, most solemn of places. Photos are taken for posterity. He charges by the letter, so most clients pass on the minimum info. In most cases, that means the name, middle initial, birth date, a dash, and the date of death. He has learned to have the one making a request sign a document verifying that the data is correct.
As he engraves into the stone, he wonders what the individual looked like. If they were kind. If they smiled a lot. Was their life marked by happiness or pain? Did they give of themselves? Or did they only take from others?
He enjoys his craft but is always mindful of the grey cloud that hangs over each stone. Sometimes, he makes up a story about their life to occupy his mind, yet he wonders if they lived a life that was pleasing to God or not. He hopes they did. For he knows that to be absent from the body is to be standing before God. That there is no other reality coming, no matter how hard some want there to be, instead of God. Like reincarnation. And that every man will have to give an account of how they used the free will that God gave them.
He has thought about it several times, yet the truth remains. By the time he starts engraving, it’s too late. Their eternity is already set in stone. Too late for them to decide about their eternity. Too late to accept Jesus as the Son of God and definitely too late to ask for forgiveness of their sins.
If you are reading this blog, it’s not too late for you. No one is etching your name in stone, yet! But hopefully, your name is etched or written in the Book of Life. There, no one can remove it except you by rejecting Jesus.
Thus shall he who conquers (is victorious) be clad in white garments, and I will not erase or blot out his name from the Book of Life; I will acknowledge him [as Mine] and I will confess his name openly before My Father and before His angels. Rev. 3:5 (AMPC)
Copyright © 2026 Mark Brady. All rights reserved.
Oswald Chambers wrote, “It is much easier to die than to lay down your life day in and day out with the sense of the high calling of God.” Truth, if ever spoken. Yet, Jesus, the Son of God did both. He always stated he only did what he saw his Father do. That meant, every day! Then, at the end, he laid his life down for us as well. He did it for you, and me.
I have a theory that human spirits are in heaven, with God, and then, the moment a child is conceived a human spirit is installed. It’s just a thought, okay? One reason I believe this is I was in a grocery store and I saw a small child in their mother’s arms. When the child saw me I smiled, and without hesitation the child tried to leap out of the arms of their mother into mine. The child’s spirit wanted to be reunited with God’s Spirit, which dwells in me.
If Adam had stopped Eve from exercising her free will, and disobeying God. If Eve had not listened to the devil in the form of a serpent. Somebody, somewhere, in the ages of time still would have sinned requiring a perfect sacrifice to reunite us with God. Jesus would still have found himself hanging on a cross.
I bet they flunked out of Kindergarten for not coloring inside the lines! Are they important? Do they love their car that much? I bet they live life outside the lines too. I mean, they can’t even park their car inside the straight lines provided free of charge.
I read something this past week, and well, it bothered me.
brady, mark a. 