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I wrote the following thoughts last month after a friend of mine drown while on a camping trip with a group of us. I had stored away the writing in my journal and hadn’t revisited it since. Today, I felt lead to type it up and post it. Just as I typed the last sentence and put the period on the end, I received a text saying that another friend of mine just passed away this morning. Interesting how things like that work out. It is my prayer that she knew the Lord and is joyfully joining Zane and Jesus, rather than the alternative. I hope the following words help.

In death, life begins to run a little bit more like God intended. When you lose a loved one, you grieve for them, mourn, wail, and cry for them. It isn’t controllable. It just overwhelms you with sorrow.

In death, community is greater. You need one another. You need assurance, love and unity. People’s personal bubbles grow smaller and it doesn’t matter how well you know each other, hugging bonds you together rather than creating the awkwardness of undesired intimacy.

The last thing on your mind is getting tasks done. You do what you need to do to get by and there is no guilt in not taking care of anything else.

Compassion grows. You see those around you suffer and their needs are valued as if they were your own because in that time, you are one.

It doesn’t matter what you are wearing, or if you hair is dried and fixed. It doesn’t even matter if you smell terrible and are going out covered in beach sand. It just doesn’t matter.

When someone dies, it feels like everything is surreal. Nothing seems to make sense and grasping any greater concept is an elusive task.

But perhaps, even in the confusion, this is the realist time of all. The time when all of life’s follies disappear and we are confronted with the vanity of our lives on this earth. Life and death is all that matters when it comes down to it. Leaving this earth should be a joyous occasion. But instead, we mourn the loss of what we perceive could have been. We mourn the career he could have had, the wife he could have loved, the kids he could have raised, forgetting that the things we find comfort in on this earth don’t compare in any way to the joy he experiences in constantly worshiping Jesus in person.

He isn’t sad. He isn’t longing. He isn’t wanting. He isn’t waiting.

He loves life abundantly.

Paul said, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know. I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is better by far, but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.” (Phil. 1:21-26)

It is a comfort to know that in Christ we aren’t faced with live and death. But it should be our joy to use all the time we’ve been given, whether long or short to lead others to the same blessed fate. Whether it is a job, an argument, a task, a funky mood, a fear, laziness, hurt, pain, or whatever else, when we are truly hit with the reality of life and death, priorities seem to work themselves out.