Memento Mori

It's never easy when somebody dies.

Our church sends e-mail alerts all the time about people sick or in the hospital or recent deaths-in-the-family.  I hate getting those e-mails because while I see them as prayer requests, others see them as people.  People they adore.

A tragic and beautiful thing happened this week.  A sweet, mission-minded, 23 year old young lady left this side of eternity.  Some would say she went too soon, but that's human talk.  This was the time the Lord had designated before there were oceans.

What gives me rest is knowing she would have wanted to go if her work was done.  She loved and feared the Lord, and she wasn't in the business of wasting time.  She was in the business of redeeming it.

I know this because she was my roommate my freshman year of college.

The accident happened en route to do things that were covered in the aroma of Jesus.  She spent two restful weeks in a hospital, and then onto bigger and better things she went.  I can't help but wonder if the few good days she had during the two weeks she was in a coma were when she saw her sweet Savior for the first time.  When He came for her.  He promises to do this, you know.

Some never think it will be them.   We don't think death happens to people we know.  Maybe our grandparents, because they're old.  But not us.  Or we're the other extreme and live (if you can call it that) in fear of everything.  Like cancer or car accidents are lurking behind every tree.  Neither of these are healthy, and neither will save us.

The reality is we're all going to die one day.  It could be forty years from now.  It could be tomorrow.  We just don't know when our time is up.  That scares some people.  It shouldn't.  It should motivate you.

God doesn't sleep.  This is freedom.  

That doesn't mean I feel comfortable standing in my closet, picking out clothes to wear to say goodbye.  The nausea and anxiety that come with searching through black dresses is still too much to handle.  My husband will probably have to pack my bags for me.

I just have hope in this God who makes promises.  This God who loves us.  And oh, how He loves us.

My friend only had 23 years in the grand narrative that is God's story.  She died serving this Jesus that scooped her up before death could bat an eye in her direction.  I desire to serve this Jesus, too.


Not wasting time with things that aren't in the business of unveiling the Kingdom at hand has to be a conscious decision.


If children are still going hungry and lost people are still lost, then there's some stuff we just don't have time for.

We've got things to do.