Psalm 90 says 'the length of our days is seventy years or eighty, if we have the strength,
yet their span is but trouble and sorrow
for they quickly pass and we fly away.'
As quickly as the hour passes when we are happily and busily enjoying an activity, and as slowly as the hour passes when we are waiting for some mundane part of every day life to end, so life itself passes by, never without some feeling of excitement, sadness or boredom. Life runs along it's time line which we have no control over. We are born into an existence that we didn't ask for and into a place on that life line that we may have not chosen. Our appointed place in the expanse of history and future is here today, in health or in sickness, in riches or in poverty, in company or alone. For many in the world the laughter lines grow, but for many more, the frowns grow quicker.
There is nothing more frail than life itself. We never know when it will leave. Haiti and other terrible natural disasters remind us of this, and so do those sicknesses and deaths nearer to home. Life comes when God appoints it to come and life finishes when he chooses too. We move and glide and follow life as it allows us to feel it's presence, whilst it puts breath in our lungs and when it stops, we feel this earthly life no more.
Death is something so taboo in our society and yet we all must face it's realities at some point in our lives. It is something very real and one day all of us will just 'fly away' as the psalmist writes. It is the Christians hope that we fly into a place of unbelievable joy. As I watched my own father pass into this place I was unexpectedly filled with two conflicting emotions. In the surreal atmosphere of this moment and those minutes afterwards, I felt deep sorrow for his loss and yet a huge excitement at the same time. Whilst I felt that sting of his death in my inner core, my heart felt relieved and excited at the thought that he was now in the company of Jesus, away from all pain and sickness and in wonder of the God who had saved him.
We know as Christians that we are just passing through this world. We will one day be taken to our real home, that is with Jesus in heaven. I personally can't wait for that day.
