So I’m Christian. My whole immediate family and most of my extended family are also Christian. Everyone who I’ve known who has died has also been Christian. Death has never scared me in terms of “where am I going?” or “what’s next?” In fact, as terribly arrogant as it may seem, I can’t even imagine what that fear would be like. I have always been secure in where I am going, and where my family is going. The only thing about death that scares me really, is if it would be sudden, so I wouldn’t have the chance to tell someone that I loved them, or if I had left things badly between us, or if it is gruesome. But that’s just cruel, and honestly, who wouldn’t be scared of that?
That’s not to say that I wouldn’t be terrified if someone pointed a gun at me, or threatened to carve me up (someone in my apartment building was threatened by a man with a knife yesterday, so this might be a bit fresh in my head) but I wouldn’t be scared of where I’d be going…I’d be scared of the pain…(again me = coward…) Or life after being shot, or carved up – it’s like my dad used to say, if you get hit by a car, or if you fall of a building or whatever, you better hope you die and wake up with Jesus, because living like that would be terrible.
So, when my friend came to me and said “my grandpa has cancer, they moved him to the hospice and they think he’s going to die any day now,” my first question was “is he Christian?” (my friend isn’t, and neither are his parents, but apparently his grandparents and some of his extended family are) and when he replied “yes.” I said “oh, well that’s alright then, I bet he’s more worried about you, than you are about him right now anyways.”
And the rest of the conversation (mainly over fb chat…this has been an on again off again conversation for the last few weeks) was pretty much me trying to get him to talk to his grandpa about the Gospel. Because he definitely wasn’t wanting to hear it from me…
But I realized that I can’t relate to that – at all. I mean, I can sort of for my extended family who aren’t Christian, but they’re not dying, and I believe they will be saved before they do (praying, praying, praying!). So it was interesting to hear someone talk about it. And what was more interesting to me, was how self centered it was! There was no concern about his grandpa or his pain or anything, but it was all about “but I’ll miss him, so he can’t leave me.” Which also does not help me sympathize…I never knew that someone else’s death would lead someone to be so…self centered…ugh.
I said maybe his grandpa just wanted to go home. My friend was not happy with that, and said “he IS home” …I didn’t want to get into something over facebook chat, so I left it at that….
Thoughts?
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