Death Is Only The Beginning. . .

I have been thinking about death a great deal lately. I am not dying, but the truth is, we are all dying from the moment we are born. Death is programmed into every cell of our body. It is inevitable. A favorite movie of ours has a scene in which a nine-year-old boy is fixated with death. At one point he tells a friend, "I am going to die. You are going to die. There is no way out of it." He is absolutely right. But what is this death that we are so tempted to fear?

I have often surmised that for everything we are to experience in this world (except perhaps for birth) the Lord has somewhere in His creation given us an example and a pattern. I believe that our death will not be so much unlike our own birth. Now I have no scientific evidence for this, it is solely my belief.

Before we are born, we are clearly alive. We move, our hearts beat, our lungs "breathe" (although they breathe in amniotic fluid instead of air), we respond to sound, we are known to drink in more fluid if it is sweeter than not, we sleep, our eyes can see and respond to a bright light . . .we are alive by all the parameters we use for extra-uterine life. We are content to be in this place where our every need is met even before we can feel the need.

Then, by some mechanism totally outside of our control, we are propelled on a journey from our perfect abode. It is (usually) a gradual journey. Our warm bath of water disappears and our environment begins to hug and contract around us until the force eventually expels us from our home. But this is not death. Just the opposite.

Upon entering extra-uterine life, we experience things we could never have imagined in the cocoon of our mother.

Image by kristaguenin via FlickrLight. Bright, white, yellow, blinding light. That light makes it possible for us to see, and there are so many things to see. Especially there are faces, our favorite things to see in the beginning, beautiful smiling faces.

Touch. We can touch and we can be touched. We could have never imagined the wonder of the feel of the mother's cheek brushing against our cheek. Or the strength of the father's arm cradling us.

Sound. The clarity of sound, the mother's whisper, the father's laugh, the grandmother's song.

Taste. Oh, how much sweeter this milk from the mother than ever it could have been imagined. And to be cradled and held in her arms as we receive it.

Smell. To smell mother and father. To smell the clean blankets and linens in which we are swaddled. To smell that wonderful baby smell which envelops us. How beautiful.

Would we for one minute, one second, want to go back into the womb, even though every need was met there? No, not for one second.

I believe that in that twinkling second when we step from this life into the life the Lord Jesus has prepared for us, it will be a time of experiencing things we could have never even imagined would have existed before. It will be an eternal time of beholding amazing beauties and glories unfolding before our eyes.

If it only took the Lord six days to create the glory that is this beautiful globe we call Earth, consider what our place in heaven must be like if it has taken two thousand years to complete!

"But as it is written,
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man,
the things which God hath prepared
for them that love Him."
(I Corinthians 2:9)