Thoughts on Life and Death

     Since the day we are born we come closer and closer to the day we die.  We all have an expiration date yet no one knows when.  It is one huge mystery - when?!  We all expect to live well into our senior years but unfortunally that is not always the case.  Sometimes the young parish as well.  I believe that when our work here on Earth is done (that God has planned for us) He will call us home.  There is a meaning behind everything whether we understand it or not.  Perhaps the reason to why a loved one dies may not be our reason to know but for someone else to know the meaning behind it.  We don't always need to understand it, but death is something we must accept. 

     I recently had my mother-in-law pass away last week on December 7.  I felt thankful to have been there - not thankful for her death but thankful to have been a part of her life.  Her adult children were by her side giving her words of comfort and reassurance as she leaves this Earth.  I watched and pictured her in yesteryears as she welcomed each child through labor and gazed upon each new baby with awe.  I envisioned her holding them as they took their first breaths in the world and now her children were there waiting for her to take her last.  There was a mournful comfort to it. 

     I came to the analogy of death being like a birth.  At one moment the unborn child is not of existence, relying solely on his mother's body for survival.  Then one unexpected day there is a little pain and discomfort and that unborn child is born into a beautiful world.  All that pain is forgotten as the mother and child stare into each other's beautiful faces.  At the time of death things are reversed.  On an unexpected date and time there may be some discomfort and pain.  Once you get through the "labor" of dying you are welcomed in Jesus' arms and the beauty of Heaven makes you forget all about the suffering from before.  It is a birth into death. 

     William Wallace, a character from the movie Braveheart, said it best with this line, "Death comes to us all."  There is no cure from death.  No matter what studies the medical field does we still will all die at the end.  We can eat all the right foods, live an active and healthy life and we still die.  There is no escape from that fact.  It is true that by making good choices in our life we can prolong our life a bit longer but death is still going to greet us eventually. 

     At times when I look at the elderly I try to picture them being young and carefree.  I picture them without the wrinkles, gray hair, and without their slow gestures.  I imagine them being a young child running around playing happily and carefree.  I picture them wooing their spouse by them getting butterflies over that first phone call for a date and feeling wonderfully beautiful.  Then I look at the youth running around and wonder if they realize that one day they, too, will get old and not move at a quick pace anymore.  Their hair will gray or may even fall out.  Their skin will wrinkle and sag.  Things that seem important as a young adult will seem trivial to a person with several decades behind them. 

     So should we just give up on life and roll over and wait to die?  NO!  That is not what I am saying at all.  We should live life and enjoy the gifts that God gave to us all.  He gave us the gift of life to live in His glory.  God has a purpose for us.  He has given us a meaning.  We need to give our elders respect while teaching the youth to be respectful to others.  We need to remember those who have died and enjoy the moments now that we have with our loved ones.  Once that those moments pass we may never get another chance to let them know how much they mean in our lives. 

An Awakening: A Christian Camp Experience

     Summer is in full swing and thousands of children will be attending a variety of camps before school will resume again in the fall.  This is a great time for children to feel independent from their parents and interact with their peers in a supervised scheduled surrounding.  It is a way to learn new skills and to push yourself to see what you can accomplish.  It is learning about teamwork while learning about something deeper inside of you. 

     It was the early summer of 1992.  I was 15 years old and staying with my Aunt and Uncle in Tulsa, Oklahoma for a few weeks.  I was slowly starting my walk with Jesus.  Even though I knew who Jesus was I never really took His words into my heart.  Growing up and attending church the priest sounded like the teacher from the Charlie Brown shows, "Wah Wah Wah....Wahhhh Wahh Wah"  Nothing was sinking in.  Church was nothing to get uplifted about.  You went, sat for an hour, and you were good to go.  The crowd I hung around with never really talked about Jesus or church or anything religious.  Faith was something for old people, not for the young. 

     My view of my ideas changed when I went to a christian camp somewhere near Tulsa.  I don't remember the name of it but it was my first time ever attending a camp and I was looking forward to the experience.  And what an experience it was!  I don't remember every single detail of camp but the parts I do remember really moved me.  Each cabin was a team and we had to study a few chapters in a book in the Bible that night and the next day we would do an activity with another cabin of who knew what of that book in the Bible.  I think we had to study 1 Corinthians.  The other ladies in the cabin knew exactly where to go in the Bible as I fumbled with locating it.  I would peek over at the table of contents quietly so the other girls wouldn't know I didn't know where that book was at and quickly get the page number and turn to that page.  Reading the Bible seemed so foreign to me.  We never really opened the Bible.  I knew the main stories of Adam and Eve, Moses, Noah, Birth of Christ and the Resurrection of Christ but the inbetween readings were unknown to me.  The other girls would talk about what they read, quizzed each other and debated over how they interrupted the scripture.  I was impressed that they knew their Bible and they loved learned about it.

     We would gather in a large pavillion for vespers and chapel time.  The songs they sang were upbeat and fun to listen to.  It was the first time I heard the christian song, "Lord I Lift Your Name On High".  I remember looking around the crowd and seeing almost everyone do the hand motions with the song.  I quickly learned it and followed along. We also sang "Lean On Me" and I remember everyone standing on their chairs, arms around each other shoulders swaying back and forth to the music.  What a great time!  It was more than just the songs, much more.  These teens where there praising Jesus and loving it.  They had Jesus in their hearts and were not afraid to show it.  Their parents were not around to push these teens into praying and singing.  They were rejoicing in God's name on their own will.  Never had I ever seen anything like that before. 

     Each day we had a speaker preach to us.  I hate to use the word preach because he wasn't talking on void ears.  He grabbed the attention of all of us and talked to us on our level.  It wasn't the Charlie Brown teacher at all.  He taught us what the Bible is saying in ways we can understand.  One man talked to us on the importance of abstinence.  He explained it this way.  One man really liked a girl and he wanted to impress her so he bought her a ring.  After a few weeks a beautiful lady caught his attention and he bought the same ring for that lady and dated her.  Some time when by and a third lady took his interest.  He purchased the same exact ring for her.  Finally a fourth lady won his heart and affection.  He went to the same store to buy the same ring.  He took the ring home and took it out of the box.  He looked at the ring and as he gazed upon the ring it didn't have the same sparkle, the same pizzaz as it did once before.  He thought about all the girls he had given the same ring to and it just didn't feel right giving her that ring he had given away to all the others who weren't so special as she was.  Point of the story is to save yourself (the ring) for the one you want to be married to, to give them that one special gift from you to them. 

    Another speaker talked again on relationships and abstinence.  He used a candle as a visual.  When you first buy a candle it is unlit, whole, pure, just like you are.  When you light the candle (he lit it) it symbolizes a relationship and how far it advances.  You might get a kiss from your boyfriend or girlfriend.  But when that relationship ends (he blew out the candle) and a new one begins you cannot start pure and whole again.  You start from where the candle was once lit - and kissing is easy to do.  Then your candle burns a little bit more and the relationship gets more advance.  Then that relationship ends.  The flame is extinguished.  Another relationship starts back up.  You don't start up near the top with kissing.  You already move to where the flame was last put out and move quickly forward burning more and more of the candle out.  God wants us to keep our candles (us) pure and whole until we marry.  We shouldn't have our candles burn out before we meet the one we marry. 

     There were other activites we did such as obstacle courses against different teams to get points.  The points led to special privledges such as swimming or staying up late to attend a bon fire.  Nothing stuck in my head more than the way Jesus was the focus in everyone's lives.  It was a real eye opener for me.  God is more than sitting at church for an hour or saying a prayer before dinner.  He is indescribable.  He is there for all people, all ages, whether we want him to be there or not.  He is our creator.  I learned that I need not be ashamed to call myself a Christian.  I learned that God has given us this great book, The Bible, to read and to learn from.  God has been knocking at my heart and I finally opened the doors and let him inside.