LAND OF THE LIVING?

I am dying.  It is a statement many people find hard to hear, hard to say, hard to believe....just hard.  And yet, each of us will, indeed, die one day.  For me, it is the ultimate healing...a time when I will be healed of all disease, all infirmity, all weakness and from the influences of this fallen world.  I have had temporary healing here.  I was divinely healed of cancer 3 years ago.  Was it wonderful?  Yes, without a doubt.  I have had joys and sorrows I would never have known had the Lord took me home then.  But, my body is but flesh and succumbs daily to the ravages of this world and my own mistreatment. 


Like almost all people, I want to live as long as I possibly can.  I love my family and I have dreams yet to be attained.  Yet, I do not wish to remain here once I am no longer able to care for myself.  I do not want to remain here if my mind is compromised to a great degree.  I have seen it too many times and know what it does to people and to those they love.  I have no desire to do that to the people I love and whom I believe love me.  I have tried never to be a burden, but I know I have often failed in that attempt.  Yet, it is one my greatest desires.


I know all too well that we do not get our wishes with regards to many things, this being one.  I cannot imagine anyone who wanted to suffer or cause suffering for those they love.  And yet, that is exactly what happens when we live too long to be useful.  My sisters and I were extraordinarily blessed to have our parents leave for heaven before they became useless and before they lost their minds completely. 


Although Momma suffered with Alzheimer's, she went home before she succumbed to the complete ravaging of her mind.  She was docile and agreeable and never a burden to us.  Daddy had an in tact mind right up until the end.  His body was compromised by the ravages of C.O.P.D. but otherwise, he was very healthy.  Although they died much younger than many, they were never a burden to us, which was their greatest desires.


So, I am dying.  I have End Stage NASH Cirrhosis and the disease is progressing.  A minister I have known since our earliest childhood once preached a sermon as a young minister which I will never forget.  He made the statement that people will tell you we are in the land of the living.  However, he went on to say, that is untrue.  We are living in the land of the dying.  If we are Christians, we are leaving this land of the dying for the land of the living.  So, I await my call to go that land when the Lord is ready for me.


Does that sometimes make me sad?  Yes, without a doubt.  It is in those times I pray for the Lord to remind me that something so much better than I have known here awaits me there.  I have prepared to sign documents that inform all medical personnel of the wish not to have live-extending measures administered should my liver or other vital organs fail me.  I do not want to temporarily preserve what is only a vessel for transporting me until my eternal call for that land of the living and which will only fail again after I'm even sicker.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope

through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.

This inheritance is kept in heaven for you..."

                                                                                        

I Peter 1: 3-4