It's true, I’m going to die.
Now before your mind
jumps to the worst conclusion, before you believe that I have indeed seen a
doctor and been given a death sentence, think of what I am saying.
I am going to
die.
It doesn’t take a medical professional to tell me
that one day I will cease living a life on this earth for me to believe
it. It is reality. Fact.
Unchangeable. Even if Jesus comes
before then, my life will still be over here.
And nothing can make that. Not. Happen.
What would possess a person to write or even say
that? Why would I of all topics to pick
choose this one? If you have faced grief
in any regards it almost borders on insensitive… but please, hear me out.
A friend of mine was asking some advice on potty
training (yes I just took that leap) hearing that I had just been through Hell
Week myself with my albino terrorist. When
you are a parent you know that potty training is in fact one of the worst parts
of having children but if you do not have kids of your own, just trust me on
this for now. While I laughed a bit because there is not a “right” or “easy”
way to teach a kid to pee and poop in the toilet… not their underwear… not
their beds… not the floor… not anywhere that is not a toilet… but indeed that
white chair that flushes their unmentionables away to the great unknown, there
are some things that got me through without losing all of my sanity.
As I typed out my reply to her, I got to the end and
without thinking put “and above all else, just expect accidents to happen. Because when you expect it, when you know
that you know that you know that it will eventually happen, you won’t lose your
mind when it does”.
I am so smart.
I read over my reply and realized that it was in fact the key to not
losing my mind the second time around getting a boy to use the porcelain throne
properly. Expectancy.
And then as I have counseled with many through
losses of their own I have realized something… I realized that coping is the
same way. It is easier when we expect it. When grandparents are older we reason that
they have lived a full life so while it still hurts, they are allowed to
go. There is an age limit on living and
after that it is acceptable for death.
But my friend, I hate with everything in me to say, that there is no age
limit. There are no acceptable terms of
any kind. It is never ok to lose
someone. It is never something we want
or pray for (unless of course there is extreme pain in someone’s body and we
have given up praying for a miracle).
Death SUCKS. Death HURTS. Death is UNFAIR. But death is EXPECTED. At least it should be.
The real surprise is not that death happens, but how
we have lived so long hoping it doesn’t.
Or that it doesn’t HAVE to happen.
But it does. Oh how I hate that
it does.
It is one of the worst pains I have ever known to
have lost someone that I love despite praying so fervently for their healing,
but it is inevitable. Reality. Fact.
Unchangeable. Death is in fact expected.
And while this may bring you no comfort whatsoever,
my friend, have faith in this- death
makes living special. Having a
limited amount of time on this earth makes every moment so incredibly
powerful. Each day, no matter how
monotonous or unsurprising, is a gift from our Creator. A gift that we can choose to use to make the
world a better place, or a gift that we can hide away and forget that there is
meaning altogether.
So cherish living but as much as you cherish it, do
not fear death. For, as Helen Keller put
it, “death is no more than passing from one room to another. But there’s a difference for me you know. Because
in that other room I shall be able to see”. Death is only final for us here on
earth; in heaven it is merely our permission slip to enter. That is why we as Christians should not fear
the inevitable, death, for it shall be the greatest adventure we’ve ever
known. I pray this for us, that we
embrace and grieve for what we have lost but not as one without hope. We have hope.
We have Christ. I am going to die… and it will only be the
beginning of something new and wonderful… but until that day comes… I will live.
Philippians 1:21
“To me, living means having Christ.
To die means that I would have more of Him.”
(New Life Version)
1 Corinthians 15:54-58
“…this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves
and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal.
Then the saying will come true: Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
Who got the last word, oh, Death? Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?
It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave
sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious
stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master,
Jesus Christ. Thank God! 58 With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends,
stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work
of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.”
(Message)
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