Wednesday's thoughts

Getting over death is one of the most important tasks we have, and anyone who says it is possible to get over it easily should be viewed with suspicion.
Basically, when a loved one dies a part of us died with them. Every death we experience is an experience of our own mortality. Every grief we know is a reenactment of all the grief we have known.

There is a pain in the pit of the soul and it will not go away. We can be busy doing things and getting involved in life but it will be there waiting for us when we stop and think about it.

The primary thing to realize about the pain of grief and the fear of death relates to all the feelings we experience in life. A part of what we are give in the living of our days is the privilege of experiencing lift in its heights and depths; its ups and downs. To deny ourselves those feelings is to deny what it means to be alive and to block what it means to be fully alive.

When Jesus tells his friends, before his death, "Let not your hearts be trouble and neither let them be afraid." He is not suggesting we have no feelings concerning his death on the cross. He is not having us opt for an attitude that allows death to come to us in an easy manner. He is not offering a life that is free of sadness.

What is involved in the injunctions of Jesus to his friends before his death is a matter of trust and hope. He is inviting them to feel the pain but not to live into it; to experience the pain but not to dwell on it.

It is a matter of choice how we will understand our finitude. We know that our time on earth is brief, but that doesn't mean our time is meaningless. Knowing the brevity of our time makes the time we have be precious.

Giving those whom we love to the care and keeping of the God we worship in a trust that transcends their dying or our grief is a way to face and overcome death but at the same time be able to experience it.

What death have you had to face? Have you ever been told you were going to die soon? Have you had close encounters? How did you face it? How did you triumph over it while living through it?

Write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net. If you are willing to have others read what you have written click on the box below.

I look forward to hearing from you.


Charles