Today I watched the celebration of Whitney Houston's life at her beloved New Hope Baptist Church in Newark New Jersey. It was a beautiful tribute to someone who gave the world such beautiful song and so much joy.

I was fine until the end when the pallbearers hoisted her casket up onto their shoulders and her signature song "I Will Always Love You" started playing. Now I have to admit that my first thought was "Lawdy Almighty, please don't let these me drop Nippy on live TV! (Nippy was her home-girl name for those that new her outside of her fame.)

No...I wasn't one of those people that knew her as a real non-star person but we were in the same family, Jesus family.

It has really disturbed me lately to hear people talking about her demons and struggles as thought that was who she was. She was a child of the King...with struggles just like anyone else. As Jesus said to the men who wanted to stone the prostitute...Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

None of us are perfect, and one of the first inclinations in our society today is to categorize sins as though there are big ones and little ones, and your own personal sin is way smaller than someone else's. Well I'm here to tell you...with the Lord all sin is still S-I-N. So we are all on the same plane.

Actor Kevin Costner, her co-star in "The Bodyguard" that spawned her greatest hit, remembered a movie star who was uncertain of her own fame, who "still wondered, `Am I good enough? Am I pretty enough? Will they like me?'"

"It was the burden that made her great and the part that caused her to stumble in the end," Costner said.

Anyhow...I digress. The service was beautiful. Kevin Costner was poignant. Cece Winan's sang beautiful, as did Alisha Keyes, and Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Winan's preached his butt off! He said, "God had a purpose before he ever created a person."

Can I get an amen!

God bless and keep the Houston family in their hour of need.