Life, Death, and a little bit of Faith

We’re all going to die.

There I said it. It’s certainly not something I like to talk about or really want to talk about. However, I’m faced with death and lately it feels like it surrounds me. It started in 2009 when I lost my Pop. No one expected his death, no one saw it coming. It just came. And as fast as it came, he was gone. Before the wounds healed, if wounds really heal when you lose a loved one, my Nanny passed away. Three months to the day. Ouch! It felt like someone pouring lemon juice and then rubbing salt into fresh wounds and then stabbing you with a knife just to make sure it stung.

November of that same year, my dad announced he needed a liver transplant. In all honesty, I looked up to Jesus and literally said, “are you kidding me?” I was angry and hurt. Was I about to lose my dad too? My emotions were all over the place. It felt like a nightmare, only I was really living it. Those wounds from losing my Nanny and Pop, not yet healed, stung even harder. The pain of life becoming ever more clear as each day passed.

It was at this time I decided something had to change. I wasn’t going to live the rest of my life angry and hurt. I started praying for strength. I started talking about my feelings and most importantly I let myself feel my emotions. Jesus and I had ourselves a long talk and I could feel him telling me to just have faith. As I started the healing process, I turned to my faith. I kept going back to my days in my youth group when I was handed a mustard seed and told to read Matthew 17:20, “He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."’

Once again, my friends, I’m faced with death. My sole remaining grandparent is in hospice care now. It really stinks. The dying process sucks and I hate it. It’s really hard to watch a loved one go through this. I can’t imagine what it would be like to see all your family standing around you and knowing you are about to leave them. Although, if you think about it, aren’t we all standing around our loved ones knowing we are going to leave? In the grand scheme of things we are only here on earth a short while. It’s these time now, instead of being angry about death, I’ve learned to accept it. And with accepting death, it puts life in perspective.

So tonight when you get home, go hug your loved ones. Whisper “I love you” in their ears. Go get your babies out of bed and cuddle them closely. Live every minute as if it was your last. And most of all, have a little bit a faith. No matter the situation, Jesus is near, my friends, Jesus is near.