Good morning…
This midwinter week, what am I learning about the seamless dance between living fully and dying well?
Monday: The wise words of Martin Luther King, Jr. leave a life-giving legacy, inviting us all up the mountain to God’s higher way.
Tuesday: Blending the wisdom of my Florida friend Betty Skinner, as she nears her 93rd birthday, with my notes from the first of six seminars in our “Living Fully – Dying Well” series, God sheds light on the well-worn path beneath our bare feet.
- All is well. There is within us a deep-rooted wellness that even the unrelenting demands of old age cannot touch.
- This final life season, with its diminishments, frailties, and closures, is brutal and long-suffering. Old age requires extraordinary and unfathomable courage.
- None of us have ever died before, but our culture’s fear of death, avoiding it all costs, is costly to us physically, financially, relationally, and spiritually.
- We remember the tragic, young deaths, but a lot of us die of old age. Wired by God, our bodies know how to build up and how to shut down. Eventually our parts just slow down and stop. Dying is hard. Death is not.
- “I’m dying,” the person says. “No, you’re not,” say loved ones. “I’m dying,” the person says. “Yes, you are,” says hospice care, “Tell me about it.”
- People die as they live. Life is just a series of transitions. We have a lot of practice at letting go of “what used to be” to fully embrace “what is next.” Learning to trust God all along prepares us for our final transition, leaving earth for heaven.
Wednesday and Thursday: Being carried and connected in uncanny ways, we are amazed by God’s powerful presence in our everyday lives.
Yesterday: Attending the funeral of my friend’s mom, I was touched by the beautiful words honoring a 95 year old woman I never met.
- Genteel. Hopeful. Positive. Courageous. A singing presence with a twinkle in her eye.
- For 72 abundant years of marriage, Doris and her husband Steve were a force for God.
- Doris loved purple, arts and crafts, children and grandchildren, and serving faithfully her church family.
- After a long life well lived, to Doris death came as a friend.
- Now and forever together, Doris and Steve are experiencing the fuller presence of God’s love that knows no boundary.
Today: I wake pondering a nugget from yesterday. The first thing I noticed about the funeral bulletin of Doris Ruth Ortlip was her birth date, March 23, 1923. I was born on March 23, 1963, forty years later on the same day. I sense the extended hand of the Sustainer of life: “Sue, over the next forty years, will you learn to faithfully dance in step with Me?”
Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:54-55, NLT).
…Sue…
P.S. Are you interested in joining us for one or more of the upcoming seminars in our “Living Fully – Dying Well” series?
