We are NOT made for death!

Hello again dear friends.  It has been a while and for that I apologize.  Update? My time in Nebraska has sadly come to an end, I “walked” at my seminary graduation, and am currently completely the last requirement for my degree, CPE (clinical pastoral education…hospital chaplaincy).

People keep asking about CPE but it hard to put into words or convey in a passing conversation.  “So you pray for people at the hospital?” I am often asked.  “You’re a doctor now?” NO!...But I do get to wear a white coat which makes that fact confusing for patients.  The best I can describe it is this: I am privileged to be invited into people’s space.  Into their joy.  Into their sorrow.  Into their mourning.  Into their pain & suffering.  It is humbling, heavy, sorrow-filled, and also an experience that teaches me much about God every day.

In the face of great suffering, the failing of the body, and death, God continues to burden my heart with His truth. WE ARE NOT MADE FOR DEATH.  Here is the harsh reality: this side of Christ’s return we experience the full brunt of death…pain, loss, suffering, heart-ache, grief…But we also have hope.  We have hope because we know death is NOT the end of the story.  In the unknown we are loved by the KNOWN God.  In Christ there is redemption, reconciliation, and ultimately LIFE.

Yet, what does that mean for death in the here and now?  The other day I watched a man die.  Just forty-five years old.  The father of small children.  Loved by so many people there was not even space for them in his room as they pulled out his breathing tube.  He was brain dead, the family had made the decision to end his suffering, it was his job to stop breathing and go with God.  But no one told him that.  Everything in this man fought for life.  The beautiful, intricate, masterpiece that is the human body fought death with everything it had.  There would be moments when this man’s breathing would dissipate and the family would draw near thinking it was that end.  But then his whole body would convulse, grasping for air, fighting for one more breath.  It took him three and a half hours to die.

As a chaplain I was invited into this space with the grieving family…as a human I fought back tears at the tragedy that is death.  THIS IS NOT WHAT WE WERE MADE FOR!  God made us for life and life with Him.  We experience death because of the brokenness in the world.  We often choose death for ourselves every day.  The blessing of chaplaincy is the reminder that God is present and healing even in death.  That grief reminds us that we SHOULD feel the injustice of death.  Loss, pain, suffering…it is all injustice because this is not the way the story should be.  Though the suffering may last for the night, His joy comes with the morning (Psalm 30:5). 

As I weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice I turn my eyes to God and the hope that death will NEVER have the final word.  Even in the muck, in the full force and reality of death, it is not what triumphs.  Christ is.