Grace San Diego

Are you ready?
Life was good. My parents had recently returned to their home in Tennessee after a great family reunion. This day, I sat reflecting on our visit and was struck by an intense feeling of gratitude. Despite my brother Dan's untimely death a couple years before, our family was celebrating life once again. This had been our first time together since his fatal military accident and we had rejoiced as we gathered for a very special occasion...Dan's oldest daughter's wedding.

In the midst of my recollections, my mind wandered to thoughts about the difficult journey of grief my parent's had experienced when Dan died. I couldn't imagine the agony of losing one of my children. I was startled out of my thoughts when the obnoxious ring of the phone broke the silence.

The call
My sister was out shopping with my daughters. Could it be them? I resisted the phone's nagging call. It continued. I considered not answering, but thought that it might be the shopping crew wanting permission to buy something. If I didn't answer, my girls might take that as a "yes", so I answered on the fourth ring. When I heard my mother's unexpected voice over the long distance lines I knew something was terribly wrong. The pain in her heart strained her words as she delivered news that shook my world.

My dad had just suffered a stroke. I plunged into immediate denial. (It's interesting when you see the classic psychological response of grief ignite in your heart. You watch it happen, yet grows like wildfire. You can't stop it.) I felt like both spectator and participant in a menacing game of grief. My father was a great source of stability in my world and now he was a fallen soldier. My life would be changed forever.

A few days later, I was standing next to my father's hospital bed. Standing over a man, a pastor who had spent decades ministering to other's during their times of grief and impending death. Now it was his turn to face eternity...and ours.

The days were endless as we ministered to this big man, now losing strength with each passing moment. Every breath became more shallow and labored. It was gut wrenching to watch my strong father, my stability, my rock...slowly dying. How does a son accept the departure of the one man who was always there for him? Where does the human heart store and process this kind of loss?

Then, the fateful decision...life support or not? Should we keep him alive artificially, when there was no measurable brain activity? We decided to put him in the hands of God. I anointed his head with oil in the name of the Lord and asked for healing. Either take him home now (a Christian euphemism for death of a believer in Christ) or give him health in this life.

Off life support, he lie in that bed with the most pained desperate breathing I'd ever heard in my life. There was a deep groaning sound, labored and resistive that seemed to say, "I do not want to give up this tent of a body. I don't want to be unclothed by death. The reality of what is happening to me right now is so intense, I just want to hang on." And the breathing became even more intense, desperate and guttural. I saw a body that was comatose, yet desperate, like some kind of an emotional despair was taking place beneath the surface of his human form. It may have been a natural fleshly response to confronting death; the body's natural programming to survive at all costs.

The release
But suddenly, at 2:30 p.m. something happened. I don't know the medical explanation. But I believe something spiritual happened at that very moment. My father had not moved his hands, his eyes, or even swallowed...not one conscious movement for days. Suddenly his eyes began to move very rapidly. My mother, sister, aunt and everyone in the room saw it. It was a rapid eye movement that was dramatic and visible under his eyelids as his eyes darted back and forth like people who are in a deep dream state of sleep.

Perhaps he was hallucinating or some kind of chemical response was occurring in his brain. But...there was no other movement...just the eyes. This continued for several minutes. And then all of sudden as the eyes continued to move, that guttural, desperate breathing stopped. He was at peace and he began to breathe very softly... a natural, gentle respiration that gradually began to slow. As we held his hands and each other's, we listened as the breath sounds grew faint and he passed out of that worn out tent. What had just taken place? I believe the angels came to get my father and he looked up to heaven and saw the Lord Jesus Christ on the throne. I can imagine my father said, "Okay, I'm ready...I'll give up this tent, let's go." In a few moments, his body was lifeless, pale and cool. My father, Bill Scott was gone. The tent was unoccupied.

As we walk by sight we see the ugliness, the hopelessness and despair of death. But, when we see by faith, we see what really takes place. That which was mortal...became immortal. That which could die...took on an existence that could never die.

When it comes time to die
There's an old saying, "When it comes time to die, make sure all you need to do is die." Death seems a horrible reality. It will happen. Are you ready to fold up your tent? When it comes time for you to die, will you be ready? The Bible says, "It is appointed to man but once to die and then judgment".

How could we rejoice and celebrate life once again unless we knew that my dad, like Dan had secured a place in eternity with Christ and that we would surely see him again? Grief would certainly take its toll, but rejoicing would come again in the morning of our understanding and faith.

We can all know the certainty of our eternity. 1 John 5:13 says, "I write this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you might KNOW you have eternal life". Do you know the Son of God, Jesus Christ? Do you know that what He says is true? "I am the way the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except by me".

When you stand at door between life and death and take that last breath of life, what will you see? Will you see angels of heaven and the person of Jesus Christ or eternal darkness? There are only two options. We don't know the time or our impending departure. We must be ready. Are you?

More

More