death is...

Death like a lot of things is inevitable. It comes in various speeds. Slow, fast, or all at once. It’s unpredictable yet blindingly obvious. We all know one day our time will come though its timing is uncertain. It is our worst memories’ magician. *Poof* There is your scariest fear, biggest life regret, your loudest anger, your deepest root of bitterness, and your most relentless resentment. Death is a paradox. It’s a release for some and an empty pit in our stomach for others. It is everything you’re waiting for and sometimes wishing, yet everything you’re running from all at once. Death is home for some. It’s a destination waiting to be reached. It’s an end to a chapter we’re just hoping to survive. Death is beauty and beast. It is a rose and it’s thorns. It is both lover and enemy. It is both wedding and divorce. It is the end of a marriage with life and for some a wedding ceremony into eternity.

I was 12 years old when I first met my old friend, death. She came rushing in like an old freight train, shaking ground as she rumbled through, metal to metal, she took my dance teacher by car accident. June 19, 2007, Sara Rebekah Stokes, headline read “SUV crosses I-5 median, causes head-on collision”. She was 25, the age I am now. It’s been so long I had to google her name to remember the details. Death has a way of crashing in and disappearing like a first love. She comes in like a hand grenade and explodes… leaving your world in shambles with only remnants of what once was to piece together soon to be forgotten memories.

I don’t remember much of that summer before my 7th grade year. What I do remember was what felt like an out-of-body experience, watching myself lie on the couch in devastation and anger, crying tears filled with what was left of my hope until I fell asleep. I questioned God and all of His sovereignty. “If He is God… then why couldn’t He have saved her life?” I asked my mom over and over again. Her response, “What if He had and she couldn’t ever dance again because of her injuries? That would be so hard for her to live that way.” My rebuttal, “If He is God, He could’ve also healed her.” I had so much faith in who God said He was and so much disappointment in His decision. I couldn’t understand why a so called “loving God” would take someone so important away from me when He had the power to fix her in an instant. Death has her way of burrowing bitterness in our hearts. She plants a seed and laughs as it grows.

In the past two years I have lost six family members. Some were old and extremely sick for a long time. I’m not saying those are easier to deal with but they were to be expected. It’s those whose lives are still waiting to be experienced that are the hardest to swallow. Last year I lost my 20 year old cousin. She had just accepted her dream job and was one week shy of reaching 21 years. Death has a way of turning gravity up a couple notches. I collapsed to the ground in disbelief and shock. My grandpa had passed the month before and I was sure my mom was calling me to tell me my grandma had passed as well. Only to hear that my cousin, just 4 years younger than me, was done aging.

In the past two months, in three different moments, I’ve happened to be with friends as they’ve had their own interaction with death. A co-worker, a family member, and a friend. My only understanding of why this would happen with me there is because I know death very well. I would never call her a best friend, but she knows me well, and I her. I’m familiar with the emotions that follow. Denial, shock, acceptance, anger, and finally peace and release. From personal experience I’ve learned to ask, “What do you need from me?” because believe it or not, you, mean-well Christian, we don’t always want prayer. Sometimes a hug is angering and asking us questions makes us process earlier than we are able to. I say all this to say…

Death like a lot of things is inevitable. It comes in various speeds. Slow, fast, or all at once. It’s unpredictable yet blindingly obvious. We all know one day our time will come though its timing is uncertain. Death is beauty and beast. It is a rose and it’s thorns. It is both lover and enemy. It is both wedding and divorce. Death is not easy to experience. But to those of you who have lost a loved one to death, whether distant or recent, there is hope within her greetings. For our sovereign God is one, who in all His power and Kingship, has made a way for death’s sting to be vanquished. It is the end of a marriage with life and for those of us that have the faith to believe it, a wedding ceremony into eternity.