Six Deaths

There have been a lot of deaths lately. It seems like everyday in the news there is another person who has died. By being murdered, hit by a car, swept away by a big wave, or natural causes (whatever that means). The situations are all different, but the results are the same. Somebody is no longer living. And we have to deal with it.


While I am not going to get into the theology of death at this time, although it is somehow fascinating to me, there is a reality that those who have lost someone will no doubt spend a lifetime trying to understand. I myself have had to work through five deaths that were personally connected to me.

My grandfather died when I was a kid. Though I was sad, it did not impact me until the funeral. Right before we went to the funeral, I saw a tear in my dad’s eye. That is something I had never seen before and only remember one other time I ever saw my dad cry. But at the funeral I began to cry and could not stop for a long time.

My dad died when I was a young man. It was two years from the time he was diagnosed until he passed away. I was living in the Seattle area and drove home after my mom called and said the doctor thought Dad had only two weeks to live. I drove back to share with him the hope that we have in Jesus. And two weeks after receiving Jesus as Savior, my dad died. After seeing him for the last time, he hugged my neck and cried.

My wife died in 2004. It was very unexpected. No one was aware of the situation. I went to work one day and by the time I got home she had passed away. It took me over a year to finally feel like moving on in life.

Z., a youth in our youth group drowned in 2007. Vibrant and full of life and in an instance he was gone. We loved him so much and loved his commitment to Jesus so much that we gave his name to our son.

My mom died this June. She had been having some difficulty for about eight months. She was hospitalized for a couple of weeks and the day after her 80th birthday she passed away.

T. got a message that a woman at her work just lost her husband. He had been terminal for a while. The other day she and her husband had decided together that it was time for him to move to a care facility. She was thankful that they made that decision together. The next day she wrote that her “sweet D. passed away today at noon”.

You can tell the extreme love that was there. There was a sadness that he had to be moved to a care facility. She was exhausted from the ordeal. Maybe, he knew it was time for her to be free from all of that. Maybe he didn’t want to be apart from her. And all of it, God’s timing.

Sometimes I think God’s timing is strange. And I don’t presume to know why He chooses us to go through certain things. But we forge ahead in hope, in trust, and in praise. To Him the glory!