As we drove through Yellowstone National Park one fall, I glanced out the car window, exclaiming "Wow! That field is gorgeous!" as I pulled out my camera. "It's dying," my mom replied. Living or dead, it is still one of the prettiest fields I've ever seen.
That exchange got me to thinking; could our deaths be beautiful, too? I believe they can be, both for us as Christians and even potentially to those around us. Romans 14:8 says, "If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. Being someone who has worked in a nursing home for the past several years, I've had occasion to witness what this can look like. A man from a church that I attend was in on hospice care; I heard people in the congregation talk about what a wonderful and godly man he was, and at work I watched as a constant stream of friends and relatives would come to read him scripture and sing to him through his last days. Though he never said a word to me, what I heard and saw of his life and death was an incredible testimony of someone who lived for the Lord. May we live in such a way that the same can be true of us when we come to our end!
Revelation 14:13 - "Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.”
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