The first time God asked me to do it, I wasn’t excited about the opportunity.
One of my dear friends had been diagnosed with melanoma, which was a death sentence at the time. As we prayed for his healing, the random thought kept running through my mind: Will you walk with him to death’s door? It was a whisper, and one I hoped wasn’t coming from God’s Spirit.
I resisted it at first, even as I prayed for healing. I believe in a God who heals, and I wholeheartedly agree with Paul that death is an enemy. In I Corinthians 15:26, he writes, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” We weren’t created to die. Death separates us from the people we love. I had lost a good friend during our senior year of high school. This friend was only in his fifties, too young for life to end. Even when time and treatment seemed to make it evident that healing was not coming, except through death itself, he refused to hold that possibility. Even at his end, emaciated by his cancer, he kept trying to find a way to be healed.
When it became clear what God was asking of me, it didn’t go well. Despite my best attempts to help him face what was coming, he refused to have meaningful conversations with people he was leaving behind and to do the work that would best care for his loved ones after his death. Looking back, I wish I’d been better prepared.
“Faith” doesn’t serve us well when it ignores reality. There is so much to be treasured in someone’s last days, if we can recognize what is really going on. It’s hard to fault someone who seeks to be healed to his last breath, but it is not a faithful way to face death when it comes knocking. Faith accepts reality when it is clear and lets God inhabit it with us, especially when the outcome is not what we hope.
Helping people through this season isn’t easy. You don’t want to discourage someone’s hopes, but also you don’t want them to seek the false comfort of denial and miss the gifts God gives in the closing days of life on this side of eternity. It’s a gentle encouragement to what’s true, rather than directing them with our own insights. Walking with someone to death’s door is a gift. If you have the opportunity, don’t shy away. We will all need it at some point, unless Jesus returns in our lifetime.
In the vast majority of loving marriages, one spouse will be there to help the other, who won’t be there for them. It is a sacred task to be near someone you love until they are no longer present in this world. For the one who dies in Christ, it will be the best of all days when they finally come face to face with their Redeemer beyond the limitations of this age. But that day is also the worst day for the one left behind, for the grief of separation will only be true on one side. Yet Jesus inhabits that space, too, as he converts the grief of separation into a deeper gratitude for the gift we had while they were still alive. You learn things there that you can’t learn anywhere else.
Recently, a friend of mine lived this whole reality, and lives on to tell the tale. When his wife was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer, and the subsequent surgery could not get it all, he called me. Hearing the news broke my heart. They had been married for less than a decade and were finding a rich and fulfilling life together. Over her remaining days, we talked often. I encouraged him that, as hard as it is to face the prospect of losing his beloved, he had been given a magnificent task—to walk with her through the uncertain times ahead, right to the edge of eternity.
She passed away a year ago, two and a half years after that surgery. He has just published a book about their journey from first love to final breath. It’s called Elaine’s Last Breath, written by Ron Vincent, a retired high school teacher who holds graduate degrees from The University of Notre Dame and Texas A&M University. I also got to read over his shoulder as he wrote this book.
It’s a gut-wrenching tale, but also an encouraging example of how to traverse this sacred ground. It’s available now on Amazon and is well worth your time, especially if you have a loved one, be it a spouse or parent, who is on a similar journey.
He asked me if I would write an endorsement for the back cover:
“Ron Vincent not only offers a loving tribute to an incredible woman but also peels open his heart to others even when an untimely death steals the love of your life.”
To respect our mortality is not morbid. Death is not the last word on anything; Jesus converted it into a doorway to a glorious future. I’ve always been fascinated with what’s next— the Resurrected Life, free from the limitations of flesh and time. Our whole life here is like waiting for our favorite ride at the amusement park. As I creep closer to the front of the line, I’m not sad that life is passing; I’m excited to discover what that next world looks like.
Every time someone I know passes away, my first thought is I wish I knew what they know now. Paul said that what we are here is like an acorn, and what we’ll be there will be like the oak tree. Can you imagine? No, and I’m sure our attempts to speculate from Scripture are all woefully inadequate to help us understand what life beyond this age will look like.
But I do know this—we will be with him forever!
