Life and Death

Life and Death

This weekend has been interesting for me. The first part of the weekend I spent it by learning of the miracle of life. A child being born is truly one of the greatest miracles that everyone of us experiences (because we were all born). It is amazing to know that everything turns out just how it is meant to turn out while growing from a microscopic sperm and egg into a fully developed baby nine months later. The later part of my weekend, however, has been quite the opposite, filled with attending and planning funerals at the church that I work at for those who have died in the past week.

Eight months ago almost to the day we found out that Natalie was pregnant. It was such a shock and something that we were not expecting. A new life was beginning inside of Natalie and it was something that we were not ready for, nor was it something that we thought we could handle at the time, but God is gracious. When I went to my pastor to share my fears with him and sort of voice out my doubting my ability to be ready to be a father or to lead a family, he comforted me by reminding what I already knew that God is the giver and taker of life, and He had chosen to give us this baby even though we, as a young married couple, didn’t think we could handle it, He was entrusting this child and life in our hands so that He could receive the ultimate glory of how we reacted in raising our child and how our child reacted with the life that it was given.

Five months ago I experienced the first death of a person that I had been close to my entire life, my grandmother. It was not such a shock that my grandmother died because her health was fading quickly, but it was something that we were not expecting to happen as soon as it did. There was a life that had begun probably with shock as our daughters did inside of Natalie, it was a life that probably her parents were not ready for or might have been more than they could handle at the time. But God gave my grandmother her life and had a plan for her. God chose to give her life just as He chose to take it away at the very moment that he did.

Life and death are both joyous and stressful. A new life is stressful when we think we are not ready for it or don’t know how to provide for it; it is joyous because when you see the life that God has entrusted you with there is a joy in knowing that is your child. Death is stressful because it is a loss of someone that we are comfortable in having in our lives and someone that has quite possibly been there as long as we can remember; death is joyous because we realize that whatever a person prized the most on earth they will spend eternity worshiping that very thing. For my grandmother, the thing that she prized the most on this Earth was God and bringing God glory through her life. I know that she will spend eternity worshiping God and enjoying Him forever.

I realize that my life, my wife’s life, and my soon to be daughters life are all a gift that can be taken in an instant. I hope that in my life, my wife’s life, and my daughter’s life that it is evident that the thing I prize the most is worshiping the one who has given all to me.

Life is temporary and Death is approaching.