Birth and Death


Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Milestones have a tendency to make us stop and think. Significant moments in our personal history carry with them a sense of import that in my experience brings other things into sharp relief or at the very least cause us to ponder them in different way than before. These moments seem to our minds bigger and more important than the more mundane day to day and often we cannot help but wonder how many more significant moments remain for us in the days to come? Was this the last big thing?

I recently celebrated my 33rd birthday. Thirty-three years of living and breathing and trying for another new tomorrow. Thirty-three years of days. All in all I really have no room to complain in regards to these thirty-three years. I have experienced trial as well as blessing, pleasure as well as pain, sorrow as well as joy. Through it all; however, I have not been tested to any serious degree nor have I endured suffering to the same extent as many others in this world. Ultimately, I can be nothing but thankful when I hold all that I have been through in the proper light.

My birthday was on Monday, May 28th though, and most didn't recognize it as the birthday of a virtually unknown aspiring writer.

For those of us living in the US that Monday was Memorial Day. We set this day aside to remember, to honor, and to express our gratitude to those who gave their lives in the service of their country. Freedom isn't free as the saying goes and we do well to remember those lives spent for the benefit of others. Though some question the insistence that we honor our military members I can't help but see it as appropriate, especially for the fallen. They may not have been perfect but their sacrifice is irrespective of their personality. Like them or not, revere them or not, they gave and bled and even died that we may live our lives free.

So on that day where some recognized my birth and most others remembered the fallen I could not help but ponder my own end. I still feel like a young man but slowly the signs of aging are coming into view and into my experience. Pain lasts longer, fatigue comes more quickly, life is more stressful. I am beyond the point where I can ignore the reality of my own oncoming demise. Life is only so long and we must all keep our ultimate appointment.

Photo by Neil Thomas on Unsplash

Death can be a scary thing. The end of our story is completely beyond the boundaries of anyone's experience and we nearly always fear the unknown. What will happen at the end, will anything, and what will my fate be? Thankfully, I know the path laid out before me. I know that when the final hour comes and my eyelids grow heavy and close in that penultimate sleep that I will see my world transformed and my soul will experience the joy of the presence of God.

I am a Christian, as I have said, and I know thanks to the Word of God that He is waiting for me beyond the veil. Do you have the same comfort? Do you have the same promise? Do you await a more perfect eternity or do you face an impersonal void and full of nothing but unanswered questions? You don't have to face death alone. You don't have to peer only into an inky expanse of nothing.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
John 3:16 [NASB]

We memorialize the valiant fallen, those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. Jesus died. He came and he lived and bled and was murdered, bearing the punishment due us so that we can be free from the bonds of sin that bind us and the punishment due us as criminals against a perfect and holy God. As we show our gratitude for those who died, should we not remember the one who paid the highest price of all? The one who not only died but who rose again?

How did you spend the holiday? Did you grill out with family, did you lounge by the pool? Did you take even a moment to remember those who this holiday was meant to honor and thank?

Did you take the time to honor the one who truly died for you?

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