The Sting Of Death

One of the greatest struggles for everyone in life is the notion of facing death.  It is a notion that appears in all forms of life, whether it be animals or humans.  There is something that makes us as humans become so attached to each other, especially within our own families and communities- that when death finally strikes someone we know it sends chills all through our bones.  Death for us can be a very frightening thing.  It's something we really don't like to think about.  We never think of the fact that we could walk out of our house at any moment and get shot, get killed in a car accident, etc.  We try to put this truth as far back in the corner of our minds as we can, but that doesn't change the reality that death could strike at any moment.  One of the most painful realities we face in life is watching those we are close to suffer and fade towards death.  Sometimes death is a sudden shock, while other times it is a slow gradual process that piece by piece decays the lifespan of a human being.  In June 1992, when I was thirteen years old- I went to a family reunion in Virginia.  I traveled there with my cousins, Laurie and Beth.  I remember that day as a day in which I had a very good time as we played together in the pool.  My brother was there also.  One month later in July, my mother got a phone call and I noticed she was crying just moments after she got on the phone.  I asked her as soon as she hung up what was going on.  I found out that the same cousin Laurie of which I had been playing in the pool with a month earlier had just been diagnosed with a brain tumor.  Over the next nine months, I would face the fatal reality of watching Laurie fade piece by piece.  There are very rarely good chances of survival in the case of a brain tumor.  It was hard to believe at that time that within a year my cousin could be dead, yet that is what I had to face.  I remember the many trips we made up to Mooresville, North Catolina just miles down the road from my hometown of Kannapolis.  During each of those trips, I would watch Laurie as she was going through chemo.  There were only two months seperating her and I in age.  I watched her fade and as she faded towards death, there were tons of questions going through her mind.  A young 13 year old girl who was raised in the Lutheran Church asked the question of why would anything like this happen.  Those questions bore on my mind and really had an affect on my thoughts. At the time, I had been out of church for six years.  All I knew about Christianity was that the Bible was the scriptures of the religion and that there was some man Jesus who came 2000 years ago and died so that I might live.  At the time, I had not become captivated by the message of Christ.  I was bewildered with a lot of things.  It was at this time that I was studying all the religions of the world in my seventh grade history class at Concord Middle School..  The question that went through my mind was how could I expect for mine out of all them to be right.  What evidence did I have to base this upon?  What Laurie went through only added to the questions that I already had.  I noticed during this time that it is religion that binds cultures together.  Why when someone dies do we gather around for their burial and mourn them?  Why do we put flowers on their graves to keep them looking need and noticed?  Why do we even care enough to commemorate the life of those who have died?  The answer to this question is that everyone of us whether we admit or not has a religion through which information has been transmitted ny claims of contact with the divine.  But would it be justifiable to say one religion was the right way and all the others were wrong?  That seems ludicrous and biased.  But then again, based on that logic- the idea that 2+2= 4 is also ludicrous and biased.  As I watched Laurie fade a lot of these thoughts went through my head.  Finally, 2 days after my birthday, Laurie's fight against cancer ended in her own defeat and the end of her life on Easter Sunday April 19, 1992.  I remember that day when we got the call that she was about to die.  As I got in the fan, me myself not yet a Christian I prayed that God would make her death quick for she needed not to suffer anymore.  It was a traumatic moment when I went in and saw her lying dead on the bed.  She had just died a few minutes earlier.  On that day, I pondered how I had watched her over the past nine months suffering through the trauma and how she asked questions of why is this happening to me.  A gradual painful suffering that ends in death.  What was the purpose behind all this.  Those questions are questions I still ponder to this day, and I know I am not the only one but I know now that God has his reasons.  Her death was not a matter of shock like the death of my other cousin that would occur nine months later.  On January 16, 1993, I got a phone call from my late Aunt Virginia, who passed away in 1998.  She was screaming as I got on the phone begging to talk to my mother or my father.  Again my mom picked up the phone and within seconds she hung up and told me my cosuin Sammy had just been found hanging from a shower curtain pole at Broughton Memorial Hospital.  The cause of his death to this day we do not know.  It was either suicidal or homicidal, most likely homicidal.  I remember how I went through this struggle once again but this time it struck upon me more suddenly.  A young kid at fourteen years old pondering the question of why all this would happen.  The answers I still do not have.  But through that time I have some answers about life that I did not have at the time.  Throughout this whole time I had studied and learned about the vast differences, yet similarities that exist across the board in all religious traditions.  Yet, I needed to know in which one of them did 2+2= 4.  I believed that mine was right, but that God would allow any and all who are devoted to their own religion to enter into heaven.  On February 10, 1993 my theology on the matter was broken. I had pondered for months the question of eternal life.  I remember hearing the ministers say that if you want to know for sure you would have eternal life if you died tonight, please come down to the altar and wwe will tell you how.  But it blew by mebecause I thought that there was no way we could know for sure.  What if I died and ended up reincarnated as flea because I followed the wrong religion?  What if I found out that Muhammad's revelation was right and ended up in hell?  What if Jesus was just some fantasy concocted in the minds of man 2000 years ago?  On February 10, 1993 one of my friends had peaked during the time that we would raise our hands for the altar call and he told me "go down there Chad, at least hear them out.  You'll feel better if you do."  That night I went down to the altar and got saved as I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour.  I believed in Jesus prior to that, but I didn't really believe in him.  My question on the diversity of religions led me though to study why mine would be correct.  After all, is it just belief or knowledge.  Well, when I first acepted Christ, it was pure belief in the Christian faith.  Now, after years of comparative studies and seeing the features that distinguish Christianity from the other religions, belief for me has become knowledge.  In relation to the question of death, I'm not that afraid anymore.  When I die, I don't want people to morun me at my funeral.  I want them to kick in some DC Talk, Audio Adrenaline, Newsboys, etc and to start banging their heads in celebration of the fact that I'm going to be in a better place where I will not have to taste the agony of pain and suffering anymore.  It is this hope that drives my passion to bring all to the knowledge of Christ and the Christian faith.