Death is the answer.
A lady came to the house today to take labs for me for life insurance. She was super chatty, and I love learning about people, so we went deep and connected over death as she took my vitals and extracted my blood.
This woman, her name is Aly, shared that she's part of the church of satan. Not because she believes in the devil or anything, she just wants to have freedom of religion, she said.
I told her to believe what you want but satan is real, God is real, Jesus is alive, and while there is power in the darkness, it pales in comparison to the light of the world, Jesus Christ.
We talked about the unseen spiritual battle that rages around us, and how we have a choice to go light or go dark. That's when she blurted out that she has beef with God because he allowed her 23-year-old husband to be killed in a car accident.
That's when I shared with her that I lost my 21-year-old sister in a car accident, literally held her hand as she died, and so I have some sense of her pain. We talked about mourning, how most people don't know how to be there for those facing death, and how death wrecks so many people, how maybe if we followed the biblical pattern of mourning where we wail for a month with our community, maybe we could heal better than with pharmaceutical anti-depressants.
This was a rich, deep conversation, only possible because I enjoy talking about death. I enjoy it because I've stared it down many many times and I do not fear death. I do not fear death because my Lord, Jesus Christ, defeated death. Why is it that the day a man died on a cross is called good? Because he served as a sacrifice to pay for the constant choice we make against God in our rebellion and sin, to reconcile us to God.
This isn't some trope, some theory, some cultural way of living. The walk with Christ is to walk in power, in light, to enter into the mess of the life of a hurt, confused, searching member of the church of satan and to bless her.
Before she left I offered to pray for her in Jesus name, just to see what might happen for her. She agreed and told me she needs prayer for her health issues and her finances. I gave her a gift of a special kind of water that she loved and picked some of our garlic ramps for her. I prayed over her and hugged her before she left. She said she wants to keep my number to introduce me to her fiance.
Do not fear death, enter into it. Embrace it. Learn from it. Let it teach you to number your very short days. Death will sober you up. Death will give you a right perspective. Go hold the hand of a dying person. Go grieve with someone who is mourning, just sit there and weep. Serve someone who was wrecked by death, as so many are, and has never healed despite all the years gone by because time does not heal, God alone heals.
In closing, please pray for Aly, pray that God would speak to her loud and clear these next few days, as I did. Join me in rescuing another soul from torturous darkness and despair into a light and love so wonderful it would willingly lay down its life for its enemies. This is a kind of freedom satan, in all his greed and lust cannot fathom. Can't think of a better way to end the Easter week.
"The day of death is better than the day of birth. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny for everyone; the living should take this to heart. Frustration is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure." Ecclesiastes 7:1-4