I Would Lay In Bed and Think About Dying

When I was a child I thought about death often. I spent many a night thinking about my own death and the idea of no longer existing forever and ever. I wrestled with the idea of it. I didn’t think about life. I only thought about dying.

As a child I could never understand why my parents acted so surprised when someone died. Even today, if I were to call my mother and tell her someone passed, I would hear a horrendous gasp on the other end as if the concept of death were foreign until I brought it up.

Death is a part of life. To truly live one needs to come to terms with death.

There is a widow who lives in my neighborhood. She has worked as a food server for the twenty plus years I have known her, supporting herself after her husband died.

She told me one day, “Do everything you want to do with your husband now. You never know when you will not be able to anymore. We had planned on doing many things in the future, like vacations and such, but we never got to. Don’t wait. Do it now.”

We can all think of someone who lost their spouse—too soon. From a human perspective it is always too soon.

If you knew you only had a year, a month, or a week left with your spouse would you treat him or her differently? Being faced with death, it generates the desire to live. When we come to terms with our own mortality then we can start living.

The only real reconciliation for death is through Jesus Christ and His death on the cross. Through His sacrifice we can have life. Life eternal. It is when we lay down our life in exchange for God’s greater purpose that true life begins (Matthew 10:39).

Live life with those you love as if time is short. Start with your spouse and work outward, and wait and see what God does.