Rest

picture from flickr: vonSchnauzer

Your vision is blurry from years of taking in the images of life. Your head spins with tasks incomplete. Your heart yearns for one more year, one more month, one more day, one more moment, yet your body is weary for the tasks completed. Warmth consumes you as you finally lay down, giving in to the inevitable. Like a warm bed after a long day, soft and enrapturing, the urge to close your eyes wins and last you rest. 
Waking refreshed and completely restored in the arms of the Father.

Death is a subject that I, much like the rest of the world, do not want to contemplate. I know it is out there and I am comfortable with my place in eternity, but the idea of being separated from the ones that I love, even for a short period, makes my heart weary. For as much as I don't want to think about the one certainty this life holds, sometimes the choice is not mine. When death enters our lives we have to deal with it, when you have kids you have to try to explain it (this can be worse than dealing with it). How do you explain death? The End or the Beginning? I am a Christian, so in my eyes, it is a little of both. But as comfortable as I am with the end/beginning, my boys don't really follow my train of thought. Maybe it derailed and I haven't been notified....
I tried to explain it in the, 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust' way and I was quickly greeted with horrified looks and shouts of, "WE TURN TO DUST?!?! Like the guy in Indiana Jones!!!" "Well, No, it doesn't just happened like POOF!, it is a longer process...." horrified looks intensify....
I started to explain it like a deep sleep, but realized this could make bedtimes a nightmare. So I quickly stop and say, "well, hmmm" as I appear to be pondering a new way of explaining I am, in reality, congratulating myself for stopping while I was ahead...  Death, like this line of questioning, intimidates the hell out of me. I am not afraid of it, I just can't get my head around it and I STRUGGLE with things that I can't fathom. So what now...I can't explain it in a non-terrifying/poofy manner and my intimidation level is causing me to say hmmm...ALOT.   All the while, my children are looking at me like deer in the head lights. So I do what any good mother does..."Boys, enough talk, eat your supper...."

Picture from Flickr: MCar

This conversation, for all the damage it may have done to my children, really helped me realize it isn't the aftermath that bothers me it is the actual event. The fact that there is no way to know when, where, or why makes a control freak like me a teeny bit uncomfortable. The reality that nothing will ever change this fact is what makes me leary when I try to think or talk about it.  However, the more I allowed myself to think about it, not in a grim way, but in a way that I can grasp, the more the intimidation melted away . What if in the moment you surrender to death it feels like you are finally getting the rest you have been longing for? Think about it for just a second! No matter how exhausted we are in this life we don't want to let ourselves stop and rest. We fight through more work, more dishes, more laundry, more dust, and more things that make us feel as if we need just a little more time. But eventually the weight of the tasks accomplished cause us to stop, we then realize rest is the only thing we can now handle. At this moment your bed has never felt better, and although your mind spins with the incomplete tasks, the weariness wins and you are finally still....

Spolier....The next part is the best!

After the collapse, after the surrender and when the stillness is stirred once again.  You wake up refreshed and ready.

Now, this idea I can relate to, this idea doesn't intimidate me...it energizes me!!!

It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead,

Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, 

but they will be raised to live forever.

Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. 

They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength.

1 Corinthians 15-42-44

Picture from flickr: Djensen

But then it occurred to me...We don't have to be speaking about a physical death and the same rules apply!!

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me,

For I am gentle and lowly in heart,

you will find rest for your souls,

For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-29

Now that is comforting.

EmJ