There’s nothing like death, that can make a person reevaluate their life.
Am I making the most of my time while I’m alive?
Do I need to make healthier choices?
Are their relationships I need to repair?
The list goes on and on. Losing someone we loved, admired, or cared for - causes us to pause, think, and dig internally a little deeper.
And yet there is also something about death that seems to make us turn on our heals and blame God.
Someone suffered greatly.
A good person was taken, and an evil one was left.
We asked God for healing and it didn’t come.
So many questions. So many unfelt answers.
It perplexes us. Confounds us. Turns our lives upside down. We grieve, we rebel, we doubt, we fear.
I started experiencing death at an early age. My great grandmother passed when I was 6. That is the earliest loss I remember. I don’t remember feeling sadness - just awareness of what was going on around me and the responses. Then I lost my grandpa at age 10. That one hit me hard. 3 weeks later I lost my uncle in a plane crash. And from there, I lost someone I cared about every year until after high school. Death came in the shape of illnesses, and unexpected car accidents.
I learned how to walk in sadness. And I learned how not to waste time. How to love deeply - because the sadness would be felt just as deeply. I learned how to say I loved, I cared, I saw things in someone. I learned how to learn from people. To watch, and to take what I saw was good and to input it into my heart and my life.
A lot of people don’t get the chance to learn those things. A lot of people don’t CHOOSE to learn those things.
And to me, that is one of the greatest lessons of all.
Choice.
We choose what we will learn and grow from. And we choose our responses.
With every love, comes the risk to hurt and lose. They go hand in hand.
It’s not God’s fault we will perish. We were going to perish anyways. It IS God’s grace and mercy, that provided a way for us to live on after this life.
And some may say - why did He create us at all? Why does He stand by and allow us to suffer? I say He doesn’t enjoy it. Yes, He may allow it, but I don’t believe He enjoys it. And I go back to what I originally said - because sometimes it’s only in death that we dig deeply and decide to make changes in our lives. It’s only through death, that we reevaluate who we are, WHY we are, and WHAT we are doing with the time we’ve been given.
I pray when it’s my time, that it’s not painful. For me, or for those who love me. In fact, I pray it’s beautiful. A time where I’m surrounded by comfort, love, and joy - because I know where I’m headed, and those around me know where I’m headed. And my God will come to me in those moments with peace, strength, and His perfect words to leave behind me.
Death is not a choice we want as part of our lives. But it is unavoidable.
What we take from it is hard. It wrecks us at times. But it can be used for good. It’s just up to us, to decide if we’ll let it.
