Oh death.... Life in it's truest form!

Hey sis,

I buried a friend a couple of days ago. I'd known her since we were very young children. Ultimately, we ended up in the same secondary school and fast forward many years later, we ended up living right beside each other, literally sharing a fence. She was the first of my inner circle when I got into secondary school. We shaped and sharpened each other that early on. Our lives took different paths, but the bond of sisterhood was always there, and we did well to stay in touch over the years, ever aware that our stories were forever connected. Then she died…

I have been at my most sober since I first learnt of her demise. I’ve cried and I’ve questioned. I stood and watched as they lowered the casket, as they put her body in the ground. It hits hard to bury a friend sis… it hit’s really hard! Through it all I've done my best to remind myself that God is supreme, that His will has been done, that His plans and His purposes are always for good, that His ways are not our ways, that His thoughts are not our thoughts, that He understands it all, that He sees the big picture. But it hurts, sis. I promise you it hurts.

She was a first child. She was an only daughter… both her parents still very much alive. My heart ached as I watched them try to hold it together in the face of what is surely a very deep hurt. I watched them trying their best to brave an incredibly devastating loss. As I listened to the eulogies at her night of memories, having had the privilege of delivering one myself, I realized she had lived a fuller life than most of us individually knew about. Time and again I asked the Lord to help her parents take solace in the wonderful things that were said about their daughter… it was clear they were also hearing new things about certain aspects of her life and how she impacted so many people in so many ways. There was such genuine love for their daughter…I pray they will find comfort in that. 

So much played on my mind that day and into today, sis. I had watched her little daughter throughout the funeral, so clearly oblivious of the gravity of what had happened in her own life. I thought how true it is that the Lord especially loves little children, so much so as to keep them from understanding the weight of some of life’s deepest tragedies. I watched her son too. Young as he is, he clearly knew something fundamental had shifted in his life… and I could see him trying to process the reality. My heart ached for him, sis. I remember looking at the beautiful casket her body was laid in, looking into the clean white grave as the coffin was lowered…. I knew she wasn’t in it… her spirit had long since moved on… but I found myself reflecting on how for her, it was all over on this side of eternity. All we were looking at and experiencing did not matter to her in any way. She had lived… and she left memories, her own unique story, her legacy… but she was quite simply, gone!

At her funeral service, the Pastor had shared about some young man who was speaking to his wife on the phone and suddenly went silent. He had slumped and died…in the middle of a call! Yesterday, I found out that two of my friends had lost their mothers the day before. This morning, I was told about a lady who while dancing away at her alumni event, suddenly slumped on the dance floor and died. So much death all over the place, sis. So much! But ….this is the irony isn’t it sis? There is always death around us. I heard some statistic recently that said that about 151,600 people die every day. Maybe the number isn’t exact, but we know there are people dying literally every minute of every day. When it hits close to home though? Ah, now that is another thing entirely!

I say all the time that death is about the living. How so? You see sis…once we die…once there is that separation of the spirit man from the body…. this world and all that concerns it ceases to be relevant to the person that is dead. Absolutely so!  It is the living that cry. It is the living that discuss the ‘how’ of a person’s death. It is the living that worry about what happens to those left behind…. in my friend’s case, young children, aged parents, a husband, a multitude of friends and family members. None of that matters once we are gone, all that matters is where we are in our relationship with the Lord.

Truth is that while we all talk about legacy…the legacy a person leaves behind is irrelevant to them. Even legacy is about the living! No, I am not advocating for living a life that is not mindful of the impact on the lives of others, on your generation. What I am saying however, is that in truth….no matter how much effort you put into creating a legacy for those you will one day leave behind, it is absolutely more imperative that you ensure you are positioned to walk into an eternal spiritual living legacy… in heaven with our Father God! That will be the only legacy that matters to he or she who is dead, sis. The only one!

Sis, death is not a bad thing. Not for a believer! No, it is rather a sure thing! What would make death good or bad to the one who is dead…the dead being the only one that truly matters in the equation, is whether they find themselves translated into the bosom of the Lord, to dwell with Him in joy everlasting unto eternity…. or whether they translate to the kingdom of darkness where there is only weeping and gnashing of teeth forever. Death is a bad thing to the living because of the pain of separation, emotions that need to be processed, inconveniences that may be faced, adjustments that may need to be made, etc etc…. Again, these are  conversations and considerations of the living!  To the dead, death is simply a translation to life in its truest form…. expressed in an eternity in heaven…. or in hell.

Sis, we know not the year, month, day, hour or second! We have buried aged parents. We have buried young children. We have buried our mates! Some gave us notice…maybe through a terminal illness. Others? A slump in the middle of a phone call, a going to bed and never waking up! You and I have no clue how we go, sis…but go we must and certainly will! If there is one thing I am sure of, it is that the Lord is asking me to step back today and take fresh stock of my life in Him. He is asking me to be quiet before Him and allow Him speak to me about areas of my life where alignment or realignment is required. He is asking me to quietly reflect and where necessary reorder my priorities. He is asking that I am intentional and committed to walking out my salvation in fear and trembling, so that whenever my last second may be, regardless of the discussions that may be taking place on this side of the divide…. My spirit, my essence, the real me would have translated to my eternal life in its truest form… in the ever-loving arms of my Father.

Sis, the Lord is speaking these same injunctions to you too. Death should not come with fear, sis. It is a worthy expectation when we have the assurance of where we are going. God takes care of the rest for those we leave behind. He is their Father too. His power is not invalidated by our death. Hard truth, but life goes on for the living. He is asking you and I today to be sure that the life we go on to is a life where death has absolutely no sting, a life where hell and the grave cannot hold us down, a life totally secure in Him for eternity… the truest life ever!

I pray that the Lord will help us seek and hold unto Him at a much more intimate level, sis. I pray the Holy Spirit helps you on your journey to life in its truest form….even as surely as I know He is surely helping me.

Be blessed sis….for your surely are!