Our bodies are so fragile, easily broken, marred or damaged in ways that are irreparable. Our souls are eternal, meant for perfection with Christ, blackened by my stubbornness and my middle of the night fears. I am shocked at my own unwillingness to embrace my mortality, my ability to place blinders on my soul so that I do not have to think about the reality too often. Death is so unnatural, so unreal in a way. So wrong. Devastating. Tonight I was told of the death of someone I knew as a little girl, no longer an individual who I have contact with, but someone who was a part of my childhood. Someone my age, with a husband, children perhaps, just gone. Car wreck. Happens too often, too quickly, too many people in too much of a hurry or selfishly wrapped up in their own lives to look around and see the families and hopes represented by those other cars around them. I too am guilty of this, hurry to make that light, why is that car just sitting there, answering the phone, changing the station, gosh we're late,....and all the while not thinking of the end goal. To love, be loved, show love. To find myself at the end of the day in the warm embrace of my family, knowing I am not promised another day. I forget. I brush it aside, push it under the veneer and worry about it in the darkness, not in the moments when I can make sure that if these were my final moments I would not regret them. The faces of my children, a haze of spilled milk, runny noses and dirty diapers that I forget I might not be allowed to clean tomorrow.
Sweet souls, designed by our Creator with love and delicate touches. Sweet soul who was too fragile to stay here with me, waits patiently for me and I for him. Blessed Savior who knew all this was too much for us to grapple with alone, and holds His cross on high for us.
My heart rebels against confrontation with death. I rage, I seek retribution, want Someone to make it right. I see myself gone, wondering how my children would cope, gasping and begging God to never make them have to try. I fear losing my parents, their absence in my life will be an overwhelming void that even now makes my breath catch. Remember losing my little one, how lost I felt and still feel from that. What if I one day must be alone without my husband of 11 years? What then. Friends, family. I find myself not really believing that God would let anyone else go....that this broken, fractured world of ours cannot possibly endure anymore. I repeat over and again. Come quickly Lord Jesus. No more death. No more sorrow. No more pain.
It is an overwhelming sadness.
My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
There it is. Why I don't go absolutely crazy in the face of death. Why, as our society prepares to glamorize death, I want to remember that death has no more power. Its victories are limited to this world. "Let no one grieve at his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.
He destroyed Hades when He descended into it. He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh. Isaiah foretold this when he said, "You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."
Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with. It was in an uproar because it is mocked. It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed. It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated. It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive. Hell took a body, and discovered God. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.
O death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory?
Christ is Risen, and you, O death, are annihilated! Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down! Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice! Christ is Risen, and life is liberated! Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead; for Christ having risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!" - Portions of the Paschal Homily of St. John Chrysostom
Come quickly Lord Jesus.
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