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There is Hope!
by Ramona Cook For any person who is aware that they are dying, there must be some measure of wondering what comes next? That question would no doubt apply to the next minute, and day, and the day when death does finally take us from the scene with which we are so familiar. What comes next? Of course we are all engaged in the dying process! From the moment of birth to the date of death we are all progressing to the day when death will take us from the only home we have consciously known. It is no wonder that we experience insecure feelings about it, and that we are apprehensive about that new experience. Of course we are; that is normal. I have heard, and I know it to be a truth, that when death is known to be near for a person, they are not so much concerned about the things they have done, but are most concerned about the things they did not do. There is a message in this fact! God created us for a purpose, He has in mind something for each one of us to accomplish and that purpose fulfills our need. God is all about us and our needs. God has placed into the fiber of our beings gifts and talents that are pieces of Himself, and He intends us to use them. He intends that we develop them, and then those gifts, and the way we use them, will give comfort to those around us. They will bring pleasure and glory for Him, and a sense of fulfillment to us. God is not a loner, He greatly desires fellowship with us. He did not create us to be a loner. We help and encourage one another; we love one another, and we share with each other and also enjoy God's Presence in the things we do to serve Him and fellow human beings. I have been a medical professional most of my life so I have witnessed much sickness and many deaths, and I have witnessed miraculous healing's for which there was no known, explainable, medical reason. So if any reader has been told they will absolutely die in so many days or months, I would like to say the doctors are not always right. I recall the elderly gentleman who came to the Surgical Unit in which I was working; he had cancer but had undergone surgery for a different purpose. The physician attending him told us his story: the man had been told 6 years before that he would not live six more months. The gent decided he would then walk six miles, six days a week, and six years later the cancer had not taken him out. The Doctor, who was an Oncology Specialist, told us that he personally would never tell a patient how long they would live because, he said, no one knows but God; and God might not think it is time to go. It is a fact, according to the Scriptures, that we can shorten our lives. We can be abusive to our bodies and not cooperate with God for the blessings of health. But if we confess that erroneous behavior to God, and start doing the things that are healthy for us, who knows but that God may not do for us as He did for King Hezekiah. God sent the Prophet to Hezekiah to tell him to prepare to die; but Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed for longer life, and God said, "Yes!" God gave Hezekiah fifteen years longer to live. Read, Isaiah 38:1 - 20 Sometimes it is not our self that we hold fears and concerns about, sometimes it is a loved one whose loss we are grieving before it happens. We cannot imagine life without them; the burden is seemingly too heavy. There is no soft soap with which to coat the pain, but there is a God to Whom we can call and know that there are no limitations in His power. Perhaps He will grant our desire. Those of us who have lost our loved one or loved ones to death, know the deep silence that seems to be unyielding. We want to call out to them, knowing there will be no answer. Mealtime comes and the seat is empty. We turn around and expect to see them coming through the door, but they are not there. Even with God in our lives, death is not easy. Death is our enemy, but God has taken away the hopelessness of death; only we have to accept God's Plan, we must agree with God. I know from my own dying experience that the thing we fear worst is that death is dark and fearful. It is not that way for the one who is trusting Jesus. To such a person who has died, they continue to see and to think, and in fact they do not feel different than they normally feel. This body in which we live is not the real person that we are; it is the earth house in which we live. If we take this body into space we must wear a Space Suit. If we live on earth then we must wear an Earth Suit. But whatever we wear on the outside, we are a "spirit being" on the inside of it. So, when we leave the Earth Suit, called dying, the house in which we lived is empty, but our spirits and souls are very much alive. Our family and friends look upon our lifeless body and seldom have the understanding that we remain alive in a different realm. It is a trip everyone of us will take and there is preparation required for the journey. It is unfortunate that much of the Church has remained silent to the point that many people do not know why it is necessary to ask Jesus to be our Savior. Many do not understand the terminology of, "Asking Jesus to come into our hearts." Our hearts are the Pump of Life taking nutrients and oxygen to every cell of our bodies. When we ask Jesus into our hearts, and He always comes in when asked, we have asked Him to flow throughout our bodies and our lives with His righteousness and power. He gives to us a new life to replace the one that our first parents defiled and which we inherit from our genetic parents. There are not multiple families on the earth! There is one family in that everyone of us are the offspring of Adam and Eve. The Bible declares that, "All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God." (or the perfection that God requires.) Since God is, "The same yesterday, today and forever," He cannot change, so He provided Jesus as a Savior for us so that we could be changed; and that is exactly what happens when we ask Jesus to come into our hearts and lives. Jesus gives us real LIFE that never ends. The results are a better life while we live here and the promise of beautiful Heaven when we leave these Earth Suits. We sometimes do not understand that no one's life really ends, those who do not ask Jesus, The Life Giver, into their hearts, still live forever, but not in a happy place, not in a place of light. I had to finally come to the realization that my sons deaths were going to happen someday, but I felt it was too soon. Nothing happened to them that was not going to happen someday. It was not as though they were unfortunate, it is something that is a fact of life. Fortunately, they had both ask Jesus into their hearts and were verbal about it. I know that they are now happy and safe, and that they are waiting for me and for the rest of the family to get there, and we will, if we are trusting Jesus. Yes, we all want to live a long life! God calls a long life "a blessing," and we also want to fulfill the "thing" which we were assigned by God to do, that is of major importance, especially when it comes time to die, but nothing, nothing is as important as being ready. Being ready is not a thing to put off since we do not know when the time of death will come. Jesus said in Revelation 3:20, "Look, I am standing at the door (of your heart) knocking!" Why does anyone knock on a door? Isn't it because they want to come in? He continues, "If any one hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with Me." It is only that the inside you, or inside me, must go over and open the door to Him. Why don't you do that right now? When you do you will have prepared for the trip we will all take at some point in time, a time unknown to each of us. Ramona: 01/01/15 Ramona, Master in Ministry Arts, BA in Biblical Studies, I am an Ordained Minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |