Death

It's so unnatural and yet so a part of life.  The end.  The beginning.  Death.

Today I sat in our church at the memorial service of one of our members.  She was 106 1/2.  Yes.  Over 106 years old.  We solemnly awaited the start of the service and listened in reverent remembrance of a life well lived while songs were sung and words were spoken.  And then we laughed as stories were shared about this amazing woman whose vibrance, wit, and enthusiasm in life inspired us all.

It was a celebration that she is no longer bound by a body that was failing her.  A celebration that she lived life to the fullest.  Despite the fact that she had outlived anyone her age, the church was full of people from age 4 to 98 of people who were touched by the love she poured out.  Friends she continued to make as death separated her from so many of her friends.  I can only imagine the reunion that awaited her!

As I watched from my seat toward the back, the service started and her casket was wheeled into the sanctuary and placed at center front.  The bright chrome on the casket made my mind flash back 15 years and 63 days.  The casket then was black, not powder blue.  The flowers were white, not pinks and purples.  The lighting was darker, and the stage filled with high school seniors singing.  Singing the songs I said should be sung: In His Time and This is My Father's World.  Because those were the songs we sung around the piano when we were little.

That day.

I wonder if I'll ever go to a funeral in my church and not flash back to some memory of that day, tucked away in the depths, covered, mercifully, by dusty mental cobwebs.  They surface and I look them over, remember the moments, feel again the pang though more distant now than it first was, and I tuck them away again.

As I watched the service today unfold, I couldn't help but compare the two.  The tones were so very different.  This one a strange sort of celebration, a life long and well lived, an expected and even anticipated end.  That one a nightmare, a life cut short before it had a chance to really take off, a tragedy that caught us all off guard.  She was 106 1/2.  He was just 10 days shy of 18 years.

The chrome takes me back.

I'm only 30, but in my life thus far, most of the funerals I've attended have been for situations more similar to the latter - young lives, tragic deaths, funerals planned by parents or family who should have been long gone before these cherished individuals were buried.  The stillborn, the teen car accident, the young cancer patient, the Christmas car accident, the skiing accident, and the one just a year ago today.

A year ago a child was sick, just a virus of some kind, the normal kind.  (Did I mention both of my babies have a virus of some kind today?)  A child tucked safely in bed, asleep, resting so her little body could heal.  (It's evening.  And we are tucking our babies into bed so their little bodies can rest and heal.)  Except her body did not heal.

And my heart cries out, screams in my chest, WHYYYY?  Why did that happen?  And please, PLEASE GOD, don't let it happen again!

No one knows what this night will hold.  Tragedies happen all over the world each day.  I'm privileged that so few have happened closely around me.  But the weight of the day, the weight of death is heavy on me.

Jesus wept.  It's the shortest verse in the Bible, and often it's pointed out as a comfort, that Christ felt the pain of death too as He walked on this earth.  But for me, tonight, the only comfort I find is that to weep over death isn't a sin.  If Christ did it, and He was sinless, then sorrow is no sin.

I know Jesus conquered death and that is a wonderfully comforting truth.  At today's service we sang Victory in Jesus.  It's an upbeat, toe-tapping hymn about the victory we have if we know Christ.  I know Christ.  I know Him well.  So well, in fact, that some might call Him my crutch.

Especially on nights like this where the day's weight is piled heavy on my shoulders as I sit and reflect, He is not my crutch.  He's more than that.  He is the only thing that carries me through as I cling desperately to Him.

A year ago, I was angry, I didn't understand, I threw a toddler-style temper tantrum on the floor of the Throne Room.  And then I crawled up into the lap of the God whose ways I do not understand and rest in the truth that He is sovereign and He understands and He is in control.

Tonight as I listen for my babies through the monitor, I have to stop myself from rushing in to check on them.  I close my eyes.  I see myself carrying my children.  I slip through the massive double doors.  I walk with them up the long royal carpet.  I approach that intimidating figure: the God who created the world; the God whose Son conquered death; the God who miraculously cares about me.  I step up to the Throne.  And I lay my babies into His lap.  I cannot protect them any more than I already have.  I have done all that I can.  I cannot ensure their safety or their next breath.  For that matter, nor can I be sure of mine.  So I crawl up too, and ask my husband to join as we rest, peacefully, in the arms of our Lord.

Here in His arms, "why" doesn't seem so important.  Here in His arms, I will rest tonight, in these arms of the one who conquered that vile thing: death.