Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Death Heals

Mostly because of our ministry in nursing homes, Glen and I have attended quite a few funerals.  Some of these dear ones who have passed away were leaving behind a physical life of pain, discomfort and loneliness.  For them, death was the ultimate healing.

In fact, death will be the ultimate healing for all of us.

At the most recent funeral we attended, the preacher said this, "We are all desolving.  Right now, this minute, you are desolving."  We are all headed to death (apart from the returning of the Lord Jesus in our lifetime).  It is inevitable.

But it is not bad.

After nine months (more or less) a baby is evicted from the womb by the force of labor.  The baby leaves everything it has known, it leaves sure provision and comfort for a new world it knows nothing of.  Birth, for the most part, is the envitable conclusion of conception.  But once the baby is in the arms of the mother, I doubt a single one ever longs for the days of the womb.  They breathe air for the first time, they see colors and shapes they have never known before.  They smell, they hear clearly, they touch and are touched.  They know love in a way they could have never imagined in the womb.

The day will come when each of us is evicted from this life to another.  We do not cease to live, but as our dear friend Tom said after my Daddy died, we just move to "a better neighborhood."  We begin to live, indeed.

We will know life as we have never imagined it here.  We will drop the robes of pain, discomfort, tears and loneliness as we fly into the arms of "Joy unspeakable," Peace which "passeth all understanding," and "Love which passeth knowledge." 

In a moment, a twinkling, we shall be healed.

No comments: