It began in the spring of 2012. As my husband and I crawled into bed, shared
conversation about the day and grab our books that we where each reading, the
quiet torment of death played through the thoughts of my mind. Night after night and day after day these
thoughts persisted. Incredibly afraid
to put voice to my thoughts and fears, I didn’t tell my husband and tried to
pretend they didn’t exist. I prayed about it, I asked God to remove the fear
from me and I rationalized through all the reasons why this prevailing thought
was absurd. After several months, I
learned how to ignore the fear and fall sleep. In early 2014, I began to think
about writing my obituary. When this
thought of writing my obituary came to me, I found it peculiar and wondered why
I was suddenly thinking about such a morbid task. I didn’t feel fear as I had in 2012, what I
began to feel was a bit of acceptance. I
did not write my obituary, I let the moment pass and wondered again where this
thought was coming from.
Tonight, as I sit at home and write this column, I can say
with a strange kind of peace and acceptance that I am in fact, dying.
When these intuitions on mine began to present themselves in
2012, I was completing my undergraduate degree in Psychology and getting ready
to start graduate school. Graduation has
come and gone and I am now working in my field as a Marriage and Family
Therapist Intern, which means I can practice therapy under a licensed clinician
while accumulating the hours needed to become a Licensed Marriage & Family
Therapist or LMFT for short. After
receiving my registration number with the Board of Behavioral Sciences, I was
so anxious to begin working! I applied
for many jobs without much luck. One day, a LMFT acquaintance that I had met
recommended that I look into the hospice field and do some of my licensure
hours in grief counseling. I had a
visceral reaction to that idea. I have
been loosing friends and loved ones to death since I was in the 7th
grade and dealing with death on a daily basis in my professional life was the
last thing I wanted to do. So I
continued to apply and interview for jobs but having no luck. Then in an abrupt and unexpected moment, my
father-in-law was discharged from Stanford Medical Center after a routine visit
that led to a hospital stay, and admitted to Gentiva Hospice. I didn’t know the first thing about hospice
or how it worked, all I knew was that those are the people that get called when
a person is sick and the doctors can no longer help. My father-in-law passed away just 6 hours
after arriving home from the hospital. A
few weeks after we laid him to rest, I reconsidered the idea of grief
counseling and applied for a position with Gentiva Hospice. The fact that I was working in a field that
deals with death on a daily basis was not lost on me and given my own intuition
over the past few years I found myself asking God what it was he was trying to
tell me. What was even more worrisome to me was that I
had been feeling a very strong pull to get involved with the Suicide Prevention
Task Force. I have had an interest in
that organization for many years. I have
lost two friends and several acquaintances to suicide. When I made the call to become a volunteer, I
was told the organization needed the most help for the LOSS team. LOSS is an acronym that stands for Local
Outreach to Suicide Survivors and the LOSS team volunteers respond to the scene
with the coroner’s office in the event that a suicide occurs. Without hesitation I joined the team, coming
to terms that there must be a reason I have been called into this particular
area of work. As they say in the
recovery world, “acceptance is the key” and I was certainly finding that to be
true for me.
I am
several months into my work now and have worked with many patients and families
as they receive the dreaded news of a terminal illness and experience the
transition of life and loosing a loved one.
It is often a very sad and also a very rewarding experience.
I live with the belief that “The steps of a good man are
ordered by the Lord and he delights in his way” (Psalms 37:23). In the book of Job, the bible also says “For
HIS eyes are on the ways of man and he sees all his steps” (Job 34:21) so I continued
to pondered and wonder out loud to God why he has me working around death. One thing that I am aware of on a conscious
level daily is how certain death is and how in the face of death, the cares of
daily life don’t seem to hold that much importance. I am grateful for this awareness.
Tonight as I reflect, the puzzle pieces I have been
collecting since 2012 are beginning to fit together in picture form I can see
what it is meant to reveal. I am dying
and I have a keen awareness of the time I have left, or the lack there of. I cannot shake this awareness and I am
becoming more and more at peace with it every day. It is a blessing actually. Knowing I am dying allows me to live more
intentional than ever before. It has
enlarged my capacity to love, to forgive and to show kindness (although I
struggle with this when driving). I am
100% the epitome of human failure. My ability
to expression those virtues have been left many scars on those I have loved
throughout my life and I have made many mistakes that I cannot undo, but…my
capacity for love, forgiveness and kindness is enlarging with this new-found
knowledge and for that, I am grateful.
However, the thing that I have noticed the most since coming to terms
with my inevitable demise is the unexplainable realization of how insignificant
I am in the presence of the Almighty God.
Words cannot convey the power and majesty of God as I feel him in this space
of my life. I think perhaps only the
people facing death have any kind of glimpse of this reverent and holy God for
the certainty of eternity is more present than ever. Perhaps the best illustration I could use to
describe how I feel is about the enormity of God is the one found in Job
beginning at Chapter 38 when God himself spoke to Job out of a whirlwind. I have found myself reading and re-reading
that passage and others in the bible over the past few months.
Doctors cannot give the terminally ill patients an exact
date of their death, nor do I have a date for my own, one thing is sure, death
is a certain outcome and I have come to see it as a blessing. I have a limited amount of time on this earth
and I don’t know how much time I have.
Knowing this inspires me to live on purpose with purpose. I need to share my life with others and tell
as many people as I can about the love of God, his goodness and his kindness. I want to scream from the mountaintop that
any other message about God is a lie! God is not cruel, he isn’t responsible
for the atrocities of this world- there is an opposing power to God’s love for
humanity and that opposing power is evil.
Whatever time I have left on this
earth, I want to spend it helping people understand that eternity is real. Our souls will live in eternity after our body
dies. I consider it a gift to know my
time is limited and I pray I never forget that.
I heard someone say just the other day that we are all just one breath
away from eternity I know it sounds cliché but what if you knew you where
dying? What would you do different? Who would you forgive? Who would you love more? How would you spend your time? Would you keep silent on issues you wished you
had spoken up about? Would you pursue
the desires in your heart that you have repressed? Truth is still truth whether we believe it or
not! The Bible is the inspired word of
God and one day we will all stand before our maker and give an account of our
life. I know this is a hard subject to
face, but my prayer is that after reading this article, you will take a few
moments to slow down, consider how you spend your time and if you are inclined,
ask God to help you understand his purpose for your life. You where created for a reason, don’t you
want to fulfill your purpose?
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