Living Death - 5 The Gift of life Monday |
If you have lost a loved one, you probably remember experiencing a sudden appreciation for their lives, for memories of moments that you shared with them. This is an unexpected blessing that comes with death; a great appreciation for life.
Death changes things. It changes us. With each person's passing disappears a feeling, an era, a time that we always thought would be. Often, we look back with longing and wish we could have some of those memories again.
Its not just death that brings about longing for another time. It could be memories of our childhood, our teen years, our young adult years, our newlywed years, our years with young children, our years when our children went off the college, etc. It seems we often long for something that was in the past.
The ironic thing is as you go through different stages in your life, you may look back at this time as something special. You may, in the future, even long for the memories of your present experiences.
The danger in romanticizing the past too much is that we desire what was to the exclusion of what is. As I once heard it said: We can not let what we don't have ruin what we do have.
Years ago, Chris (my wife) and I, attended a marriage seminar. The emotional pinnacle of the weekend is when the leaders of the event wrote a letter to their spouse after contemplating their death and what they would miss most about them and then they read it aloud to their spouses in front of everyone, usually through a lot of tears. Every couple is instructed to then go to their hotel rooms and do the same. Obviously, the point of the exercise is to make the participants appreciate the gift that they have in their mates. Our lives get so busy with the daily grind and stresses that we often fail to contemplate how deeply gifted we are.
Living Death does this for us. We come to be surprised at the fullness of our present lives. The author of Cloud of Unknowing writes about this unexpected blessing from death to self,
"He rejoices that he is and from the fullness of a grateful heart he gives thanks to God for the gift and the goodness of his existence."
As you continue on your journey of dying to self, you will be more acutely aware of the blessed ordinary moments with your children, your spouse or your friends or family or even in your time alone. It will be as if you step outside the moment and watch it happen and while you are experiencing it, you will breathe deeply and with a full heart say "thank you for this Lord."
Dead people, by all rights, should not have such moments.You are deeply blessed to have them. All of life is a gift, made that more precious by death.
Death changes things. It changes us. With each person's passing disappears a feeling, an era, a time that we always thought would be. Often, we look back with longing and wish we could have some of those memories again.
Its not just death that brings about longing for another time. It could be memories of our childhood, our teen years, our young adult years, our newlywed years, our years with young children, our years when our children went off the college, etc. It seems we often long for something that was in the past.
The ironic thing is as you go through different stages in your life, you may look back at this time as something special. You may, in the future, even long for the memories of your present experiences.
The danger in romanticizing the past too much is that we desire what was to the exclusion of what is. As I once heard it said: We can not let what we don't have ruin what we do have.
Years ago, Chris (my wife) and I, attended a marriage seminar. The emotional pinnacle of the weekend is when the leaders of the event wrote a letter to their spouse after contemplating their death and what they would miss most about them and then they read it aloud to their spouses in front of everyone, usually through a lot of tears. Every couple is instructed to then go to their hotel rooms and do the same. Obviously, the point of the exercise is to make the participants appreciate the gift that they have in their mates. Our lives get so busy with the daily grind and stresses that we often fail to contemplate how deeply gifted we are.
Living Death does this for us. We come to be surprised at the fullness of our present lives. The author of Cloud of Unknowing writes about this unexpected blessing from death to self,
"He rejoices that he is and from the fullness of a grateful heart he gives thanks to God for the gift and the goodness of his existence."
As you continue on your journey of dying to self, you will be more acutely aware of the blessed ordinary moments with your children, your spouse or your friends or family or even in your time alone. It will be as if you step outside the moment and watch it happen and while you are experiencing it, you will breathe deeply and with a full heart say "thank you for this Lord."
Dead people, by all rights, should not have such moments.You are deeply blessed to have them. All of life is a gift, made that more precious by death.