Death & the Perfect Peace

When I was a kid, death was the farthest thing from my mind — but it was the death of a cousin and best friend that caused me to view life differently.

Darren and I were born one month apart. At the age of four, he was diagnosed with Duchene’s Muscular Dystrophy. As I watched him go from playing in the fields with me to being confined to the wheelchair, and finally bedridden and attached to all manner of machines to keep his body functioning, I realized just how fragile our bodies were.

On a pretty fall day in November, my mother and I went to visit someone when we received word of Darren’s passing.

Just a month shy of his fourteenth birthday (two months before mine).

I remember attending his burial service at the cemetery. It was a cold and rainy afternoon. I remember hearing his three sisters crying behind me. Death had already visited the family nine years earlier with the sudden passing of their dad, and now their only brother was gone.

Death seems so final. So traumatic and painful. It’s no wonder that people fear it.

But is it death they fear; or is it whether anything happens to us after death?

I would have many other occasions to ponder on these questions. The kidnapping and murder of a friend when we were sixteen. The drowning death of a fifteen-year-old cousin. The death of an infant cousin because he didn’t get the liver transplant in time. The death of my first husband as the result of a car accident. The passing of my dad ten years ago to an aggressive lung disease.

I was at my dad’s side with the family when he took his last breath. It’s heartbreaking to lose a parent, a loved one — but, even as the tears streamed down my face, I knew I would see him again one day. It wasn’t truly goodbye; rather it was see you later.

I had never been in the presence of someone dying before my dad. As he lay dying, the atmosphere in the hospital room was heavy with sorrow, but after he took his final breath, I could sense his soul leaving the body as the air in the room grew very light — like one releasing a deep sigh of relief.

Death, loss, and grief seem to be themes of most of my life — I’ve allowed these, for a time, to embitter my heart against God. Most of those I’ve lost died long before old age. How fair was that? Their deaths affected me — causing me to view life as precious and one to protect as best I can.

Death, I learned at a young age, is something we all will face. Many fear death itself. Others fear what would happen after death. Still, others believe that there is nothing after we die.

Sixteen months ago, I had a near-fatal heart attack. In the throes of the excruciating pain, I prayed for the first time in years, and this peace like anything I’ve ever felt before filled me. I felt no fear. What mattered to me most at the moment wasn’t calling for help, but where I stood with God. And after I prayed, I knew that I was going to be fine — no matter what happened from then on. If I were to die, I knew exactly where I was heading.

This must be what my dad felt as he took his final breath. As his soul left his body, those of us who were left behind, though saddened, were at peace because of God.

Do you have this same peace?

As a child of God, you view death differently. Death isn’t final. No, death is only the beginning of a new life with Him and in a new body. This is the hope that we as His children carry with us here. It is through God, and His son, Jesus that we draw our strength and peace from during the hard times.

Do you have this same hope and peace?

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid. [Let My peace calm you in every circumstance and give you courage and strength for every challenge.] — John 14:27 AMP