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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.

life, death, and other small concepts...

Disclaimer: I can’t take the credit for this one. The following theological thoughts were ruthlessly and un-regrettably stolen from a certain fiancé of mine.

This last week at the youth ministry at our church (Easter Sunday!), Kevin planned on preaching out of Luke 24 but never got the chance to. Tatiana and I refused to accept this and made him take us to Dairy Queen and preach it to us anyways. Turns out it was a good thing we heard the gospel that day, because the message needed to be preached.

His sermon was centered on the concepts of life and death. We are taught as Christians that we once were dead,, but now we are alive in Christ. Just as Jesus Christ rose from the dead, we too find life upon entering into relationship with God. But if we enter into LIFE at the same time we enter into this relationship with God, then what were we for all the time leading up to that? We would say all those years were a part of our “life” but if we didn’t have life yet, then what’s left for us to be? Dead.

Praise God we aren’t stuck in death. Thank Jesus that through him, we can be eternally separated from the hopelessness of death. But after we take that step and become followers of Christ, we should be living in that life. The problem that raises now is how could we possibly know how to “live like we’re alive” if our whole “lives”, we really were dead. Any paradigm we have for “what life is” was formulated and defined within the confines of death. In Luke 24:5 the angel says “why do you look for the living among the dead?” We live among the walking dead all the time. Many of us are still dead. If we aren’t, We can at least remember what it was like to be dead. And even in life, many of us still are living according to the norms of death.

This was an Easter sermon, and honestly, I usually gloss over those thinking, “I’ve heard this before. This is for people who still need to find Jesus.” But in reality, I live in death all the time. Thank God that he is merciful and loves me all the same. But the choices I make and the things that I think about can so easily turn into the confining things of death.

After we get married in September, Kevin and I are planning to get a house. By choosing to buy one here in Hermiston we are making a pretty big commitment to living here, doing ministry here, and in the future, raising a family here. That idea finds much favor with me. I grew up here. My whole family lives here. I went to elementary school and middle school, high school and college here. It’s not that I couldn’t have left, but that I was one of the few who didn’t want to. I met Kevin here and we are getting married here. It works for me. I know it well. It’s comfortable.

And that would be exactly what death wants for me. He would want me to believe that the best thing I can do on this earth is find comfort in controlling what I can of my life. Because I am so used to doing what I think is best for me and most enjoyable for me, it is so difficult to believe that maybe someone out there knows something better than the comfort I’ve created around me. If I want to be living in life I have to recognize that there is only one person who knows life and truth in its purest form. I have to believe and hope for the things that I can’t see. If true life for me is here in Hermiston, then I’m blessed to be here, but if it ends up being any other place doing any other thing, I want that… because life, even in it’s worst form, is still so much better than death at it’s best.