Confronting my fear of death—August 21, 2014

               It has been one of the most freeing things for me to confront my fear of death over the last two years. At first, I was angry—how could they die? Why would you take a father from his children, a husband from his wife, a grandfather from his family, a girl from her home? Why. I wanted answers. I was afraid that I would be robbed too—that I would suffer even more, and lose more people I cared about. I didn’t want to love anyone because that meant loss. I wanted security—not just for me—but for the orphaned, the widowed, the desolate. I was fearful because for the first time in my sheltered life—I didn’t ultimately get the answer I wanted—they weren’t healed, help didn’t come soon enough, death won. I was also scared to admit it—I had just spent months supposedly living out my faith—but really, I had been losing it. I had looked at the hungry children living amongst piles of garbage and human waste, I read letters scrawled on torn paper asking me to help them get away from abusive families, I had read the status announcing death, I heard the words—he overdosed and didn’t make it. In my prideful pain I wanted answers—just like they used to come; when I had faith like a child that daddy would take care of it.  I wanted to hear that there was hope; that death didn’t win—but the pain of two months of death after death shouted above the whisper of the Cross. In my anguish I forgot that God used death to bring hope. He defeated it—ultimately. But my type-A personality wanted answers for the day—not for the future. I wanted things to be right on my terms. I didn’t want to fear poverty, cancer, brain tumors, drug overdoses, and even old age. I wanted to have security.

               Looking back—I was using God to gain security instead of trusting him and having security. Trust me, it’s a completely different mindset. Being a North American, I expected immediate answers and conclusions—google answers my questions in seconds—why didn’t God? It was a crisis of faith that arose when I shifted my focus from who God said he was to what I wanted to get from him. I had been treating God like Santa—he gave me coal and I didn’t understand that coal wasn’t a punishment—it was a gift. The lumps of hard things—death, poverty, loneliness, injustice—were coals that were to be offered up and burned—as I’ve worked through each of these areas I can now see that the coals are burning and rekindling my faith. What I thought was the death of my faith actually served as the means to growing and strengthening it. I don’t have to fear death—through death Jesus won, heals, and refines.