"Death!" Its tragedies and blessings that will confront all of us!

“Death”;  Its tragedies and blessings that will confront all of us!

To put into perspective the very emotions and expectations of what we face from death, there must be a reason why the results either become welcomed in joy or rejected with anger and sadness.  

While watching someone who is dying from a terminal disease or a tragic accident all anyone of us can do is wait nearby and pray.  Their ultimate prognosis is not in our capacity to do anything as we all will ultimately face the same result.  

Putting the obvious final moments of a dying person’s life into perspective it is necessary to view their death as a reality where no one escapes this human existence without some manner of removing our soul and spirit from the mortal body they inherit.  It is one of the two realities we often refer to as: “there are two absolutes all must face;  taxes and death.”  We laugh at this and always try to avoid being taxed, but death; well it comes without rhyme or reason. 

Why should a dying person want to linger in pain as the angels are waiting to lead us away from the pressures and disappointments of human life to the very bliss that God promised will be ours because of the Blood Jesus shed as payment for our sins?  After all, this final step of entering eternity was bought and paid for on the cross at Calvary.  It is the one sign of glory that awaits each one who believes and trusts in God.  

Within the very human structure that we exist in there may be circumstances that may have placed loved ones in peril due to a mistake of others.  Because of a human failing by not being like a robot or under the divine action of God there will always occur simple mistakes of another and a tragedy occurs.  Do we as loved ones seek revenge because another person failed one way or another and we suffer the emotional consequences that may never leave our consciousness?  Do we, weak as we are, look for ways to punish one of our species that could be us as well, or will we find deep down the grace to be forgiving and let go, and let God?  

Putting the obvious path each of us must walk alone and find within the mercy of God, the same attitude that only forgiveness can bring to our lives; the living and the dying, solace as well. 

Death, with all its negative connotations, is what we all need to look forward to whether in good health and praying to die in our sleep, or lying on a bed with hospice attendants, we wait and take hold of an angel’s hands and swiftly move out of humanity into eternity.  In spite of the negative perspective, death is the birth into eternal life with God.

Ralph B. Hathaway