I don’t handle death well. I think this stems from being with my best friend in High School/College when he died. It was a traumatic experience that still haunts me to this day. Even after 18 years one would think that I would get over these emotions and come to grips with some level of acceptance. There are still moments/flashbacks/nightmares that take me right back to the event… a smell, a sound, a phrase, a name, a place, an old friend.

It happened today.

I come home from work and get the news that a High School/College friend is terminally ill with cancer, treatment is not working, and is at the hospital with family and friends waiting to die. She is 36… we graduated High School together… Went to college together… Dated for a little while… Another High School/College friend leaves me a message… gives me the details. Time flashes back in slow motion.

Some know of Rick and Bubba, the humorous southern boys of syndicated radio. Apparently, Rick’s two year old son died this past weekend. Rick spoke at the funeral. This is the first of three videos. I salute Rick’s courage and faith. May God bless the family.

I received sad word today that Ed Drew - the military chaplain whom I consider to be the most influential mentor I’ve ever had and who modeled for me what it really meant to follow Christ - died this week. The Lord used him 20 years ago in Italy to wake me from my spiritual lethargy and show me what it means be let the Holy Spirit flow in power in one’s life. He died from cancer. I grieve for the loss to Ed’s beloved wife, Rose and the rest of his family.

Al Mohler talks with Time magazine about his recent brush with death from a reformed perspective.

“lots of believers are more dependent on a Calvinist-style sovereign God than they realize when they make their theological claims”

Bob
Fides Quaernes Intellectum

Death. It seems surreal until it touches us or strikes unexpectedly.

Death is the great equalizer. At death, we are all suddenly made equal. Even though the funerals may differ tremendously, we are all equal at the moment of death (Ps 49:16.) No matter how privileged or rich we may have been in this life, we are equal in death to the poorest of the poor (1 Tim 6:7.) The ornate funeral of a royal king or a “Bill Gates” should not deceive us; such a person is equal at the moment of death to the poorest leper who dies namelessly on a backstreet alleyway of Calcutta. If we are blessed with great material wealth or an exceedingly high status/position in this life, we should be sobered by the realization that it means nothing at the moment of death. If we have been poor and/or lowly (in the eyes of the world) in this life, we can take heart at the certainty that even the most privileged become our equal in death.

Being at the hospital and at this “nursing home” is tough mentally. All these old women in a near vegetative state. I really see nothing encouraging about aging and don’t look forward to it. One thing that really irks me is the crap food they feed these people in nursing homes. These people should eat the highest quality of foods, organic green leafy vegetables, fruits, bright colored foods, not the moon pies and peanut butter chocolate bars i saw them passing out today. These people are on their last leg or are very unhealthy, why make them even more unhealthy and closer to death? I hope I die in a bike wreck or in my sleep well before I have to go through any of this.