The Bible talks about death as a curse. It’s a bad thing.  It’s not pleasant.  It is as natural as life.  It’s expected.  We will all experience it personally someday.  For some of us, we have already had a taste of it.  I was sitting at my desk when my boss got the call that her father had unexpectedly passed away.  I was there just hours before my brother took his last breath after a short 6 months fight with terminal brain cancer.  Grandma’s body loss the fight.  

We see death in large numbers.  Massive loss of life from a storm that sails through a small town and leaves death and destruction behind. Life taken from behind a steering wheel.  A young man scoring the final winning basket for his high-school basket ball team falls to the floor and he breathes no more.   

Death is the final stop.  It’s the final breath. It’s the final word said. It’s the final thought. It’s the final act. It’s the last step. It’s the last embrace.  It’s the last sigh. It’s the last cry.  There is no more when death is through. It’s done.  Life, breathing, living it’s done here as we know it.  

As a Christian I have hope.  Hope in life eternal through Jesus.  Hope everlasting.  I will go be with my Lord and Savior.  I will be reunited with those that have gone on before me.  That is the happy ending.  But I’m not writing about Heaven tonight.  I’m not writing about that reunion.  

This is about death.  It’s about how cancer and sickness and age or accident or storms or tragedies or crime steals away breath and life. It leaves those behind feeling lost, empty, pressed down, can’t catch my breath this is going to smother me feeling.  It’s not pleasant.  It certainly isn’t easy.  

The Bible says it’s a curse.  It’s the wages of sin.  And it is.  It’s tough.  There are families right now that have felt it’s weight. There are people right now going through this part of life’s journey.  It’s so hard to say good bye.  It’s so hard to let go.  And for those left behind that’s exactly what we do.  We keep on breathing, living, talking, walking, praying, crying day after day and the days get further apart from when life stopped and life kept going on.  And sometimes it’s hard to reconcile that part. 

I remember distinctly realizing that the only memories I had of my brother and myself were old ones. We wouldn’t have new ones together.  I remember feeling awkward at going back to work, or out to dinner, or grocery shopping.  It was as life was going on even though his had abruptly stopped. 

I do not like death.  I do not like cancer or sickness or the countless other things that steal breath away from our vulnerable and fragile beings.  I do not want to gloss over it.  Dress it up with flowery language in the attempt to hide it’s ugliness and stench.  I read recently in Job that after he lost his children and crops and animals and everything that mattered his friends came to see him.  For seven days they sat and said NOTHING because they could see how terrible the grief was.  They were with him. They attended to him. And They sat with him and said nothing because when death knocks on the door and leaves taking life with it,  sometimes there are just no words to say.  

What is my hope then you ask?  How do I suffer such loss?  My hope is in Christ. He experienced something I have yet to go through. He has been on the journey of death. It took his last breath.  He knows what it’s like to be in that moment where life and death pass each other. That point where one life ends while the others keep going on.  

My hope is in Christ who keeps me.  He will keep me safe in my own journey.  He will give me grace when the day comes.  He will give me peace so as not to fear the unknown.  And as I watch and observe this thing come disguised in many forms steal again and again I will find strength in Him to breathe again.  To feel again.  To laugh again.   If nature teaches us one thing it’s that the morning does come after every dark night.  The sun does shine again after every storm.  And even death in nature is the very thing that brings life.