My heart aches, and breaks, as one of my most treasured “self-adopted” sisters walks her mother home to heaven. The past few weeks I’ve also joined others in prayer as their loved ones embark on this same journey. Sharing in the offering of prayer strengthens the faith and hope of our souls; but despair, even to the most ardent of God’s children, also infiltrates the heart of those watching their loved ones suffer on this road to eternity. Choruses of “why, God?” have been an echoing cry. I have no magic wand to void out this question, but I do believe a “wisdom of God” answer can be found in a garden — the Garden of Eden. Such was the message I shared with my cherished sister and now, you.
So often, we automatically think God determines death. We forget that sin and the devil manufactured death. God did not initiate death. Yes, being all-knowing God knows the number of our days and they are written in the Book of Life even before we are born, but this is not an equation equaling God is responsible for death. He created us to live. The agony of death is of Satan. As Christians, we realize earthly death leads to eternity in heaven. However, we overlook the suffering of death is not God waiting to open His door but rather Satan trying to interfere with closing the door on earthly suffering. Only Satan’s claws are responsible for suffering and death. Rest assured, though, that God’s hands are holding and carrying our loved ones as they journey home. God’s tears are being shed just as ours are.
We, as humans, often consider going home to heaven as climbing a mountain. We ascend upward, reach the peak and we are home in eternity. Yet, in honesty, Psalm 23, the most hailed verse to guide in death, states “… even though I walk through the VALLEY of the shadow of death”. A valley is a low piece of land between hills or mountains. In a valley, our eyes cannot look up and see an endpoint. There is no visible peak to a valley. God is associated with the mountaintop. That is where He spoke to Moses and revealed Himself to man. That Christ died on top of Mount Calvary is symbolic that while God, as a man, had to die for our salvation, His death was never under the devil’s control. God is God and the devil could never taint Him. Thus, His death was mountaintop, but man’s is of the valley. The devil, we always say, lives DOWN in hell. He and his place are beneath all else, at rock bottom. Too often, we forget the devil is a spirit that can leave hell and travel to earth, carrying his suitcase packed full of death. Since his position is low, is it not logical that he and the death he brings is of the valley? What we must hold fast to is that God descends the mountain and carries His children through the valley of death. None make this journey without His watch. God is not of the valley, but He is in the valley holding His heaven bound children.
Psalm 23 continues “I will fear no EVIL, for YOU are with me. The EVIL is the devil. The YOU is God. The devil is real and lurking at death’s door, but God is also, most certainly, there with those journeying home to Him. We need not fear the devil, for God will escort each of our loved ones home, and as He opens heaven’s door, the door will be slammed on the death that the devil brought to earth.
I possess no words capable of reducing, let alone removing, the sting of death. However, my faith, hope and love cling unflinchingly to God’s promise that “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21:4 (NIV)
Uplifted in a Broken Down World 