The Great Equalizer

I've long learned not to use the religious clichés when trying to comfort someone who has lost a loved one.  Though I believe with all my heart that "God knows best",  I question whether someone is often ready to hear this when the pain of loss is still freshly stinging...
Regardless of the decedent's ailment and worse if they never had one, the seeming finality of death is too much to bear. 

My worst struggle with dealing with this issue however always returns to "what now?"  I spend hours just sitting wondering about what happens to that person after their breath is gone.  Was he/she a Christian?  If it were someone I knew personally I begin to mentally replay my interactions with that person and consider whether they could've seen Christ in me or if at any time I endeavoured to demonstrate or talk of my faith and the reason I have it. 

This past year has been a particularly difficult one because there have been so many deaths whether of persons within my own circle or of persons connected to the individuals within that circle.  I have on several occasions pondered whether this painful life altering experience is closing in on me or if I've only noticed the deaths because as an older person I'm more aware of what's going on around me.  After all, so many people didn't die when I was a kid...did they?

Perhaps one of the benefits of death (excuse this outrageous paradox) is it helps us put things in perspective.  It's that sobering reality that forces us to consider our purpose on this planet.  Do we have a purpose?  Is this the end all? Is there life after death?  If there is, what kind of life is it and does what we do while alive have any bearing on it?  I'm sure that at one point or another every person has wrestled with these thoughts.   My former pastor often spoke about tombstones having etched in them two sets of numbers separated by a dash.  His challenge was the significance of what we did with the dash.  When he spoke of what "we did with the dash" he was not referring to whether we went to college, paid our taxes or were kind to our neighbours...those things are great but in the grand scheme of things may possibly only affect the type of casket we get or the number of mourners present.  It's not one's economic status or educational background that facilitates the preparation either.   "What we did with the dash" more importantly refers to whether in life we prepared for death.  Some people argue there's no life after this one but I disagree with them because even nature points to the existence of God and if God exists (and the Bible says He does) why would I reject the rest of the stuff the Bible says?

It is however the promise that death is not going to win that gives me some peace...
In the immortal words of John Donne "death, thou shalt die"...