Processing End of Life
Psalms 116:8-9
For you have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling; I will walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.
Psalms 116:15
Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his saints.
I was so relieved when I read those first two verses and felt confidence in God’s desire to rescue me from my cancer. Like David, I wanted to “walk before God in the land of the living”! Then just a few shorts verses down I was startled to read “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.” How can I reconcile this dichotomy of God delivering his children from harm but death being precious to him.
Death is something that our western culture does a lot to shun and avoid. I remember growing up near our small-town nursing home and seeing people spend their last days there and thinking how sad and isolated the process seemed. These facilities have become the norm for end-of-life care, because it isn’t fun or glamorous to help someone through their transition from earth to heaven.
Growing up, my dad and my brother Ben rotated multiple nights a week walking across the road to my grandparents' house to care for my grandpa in his home. My Grandpa had Parkinson’s disease and needed help getting up at night. Their sacrificial, serving love was a special gift that I felt privileged to watch. It reminded me of two specific instructions given to all of us in Scripture:
Acts 20:35 In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’
1 John 3:17-18 But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
As image bearers of Christ, we are called to reflect the love and care Christ has for us, to those around us and our family members in particular! (1 Timothy 5:8) I hope to be able to care for my parents in their home when the time comes. Knowing that my heavenly Father is preparing a place for me, because he wants to be with me, encourages me to love in this same way. Everyone deserves to feel loved and cared for in their final hours as much and the precious moments when they came into this world.
John 14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
My Uncle Steve passed away from cancer three years ago. Steve was a hardworking, sarcastic, and fun person to be around! He was not married and did not have any children, so his siblings walked with him through his end-of-life battle with cancer. When I was talking with my Aunt Patty (Steve’s sister) about what it was like being with him in his final hours she said,
“Steve asked me if I would just put my arms around him while we waited for the ambulance.” His body was shutting down and transitioning to heaven, and he just wanted to be held.
I think everybody in their lifetime will be called on to snuggle someone tightly as they're leaving. To have to step into that situation that is a little awkward (snuggling my brother). But you throw down everything because THEIR need is so great.
I think there's a lot of people that are so guarded in their emotions that it's hard for them to step All in... They feel like they need to deal with their own stress and grieving. To be able to give and not ‘clam up’ because it's so heart-rending, it just as to come from God himself”
Patty has gone through end-of-life care with two of her close friends, her brother, and mother, and I am so inspired by the example she has been of loving someone through the uncomfortable, raw, vulnerable emotions of dying. Watching someone who is, as my Aunt Patty put it, “putting hands into Jesus’ hand.” has a powerful impact.
We walk the tight rope of balancing “Not my will but thine, Lord,” with pouring out our hearts to God, pleading on behalf of a friend, a loved one, or ourselves, to stay earth-side and walk in the land of the living a little longer.
I’ve been surprised what a breath of fresh air it is though when the saints around me talk about and engage with a Biblical view of death and dying that isn’t filled with fear and hopelessness. Death is holy.
Death is, for the believer, a home coming with our savior that we should all be anticipating as He is preparing a home for us so that where He is, we might also be!
I am encouraged to view death, not as game over or some kind of punishment. Not as though someone left us before we felt it was their time or like it was too soon.
Death is the end of corruptible bodies.
Death is running into our saviors' arms.
Death is the road to faith-become-visible.
Death is hope fulfilled in heaven with Jesus.
Death is, as it says in Psalm 116, “precious in the sight of the Lord”