Two Days - Two Deaths

For a few hours each week I help out in a surgeon’s practice. He is a very busy doctor – a gifted surgeon. In a busy practice with sudden changes, it becomes difficult for the office staff to deal with life altering emergencies. Stress levels run high. Sick people can be impatient, rude and downright nasty at times. I understand the patients’ responses – they are not well – their lives are painful, hard, and difficult. Sudden change for them diminishes hope.

Yesterday morning while in surgery a patient passed away. A twenty-year-old young man with kidney failure. What does one say to a family whose child will no longer live and breathe? A child now gone from their lives?

This morning my sister received a text message – a colleague passed away at 04h45. Recently she turned forty and celebrated a 21st birthday – the 21st birthday of her new heart. However, her liver and kidneys were failing due to the very medications which kept her heart functioning. What does one say to her children who are still too young to understand? An eight year old and a soon to be three year old – both adopted. What does one say to her family?

How does one comfort the grieving who grieve without hope? Whose only blessedness ended with their physical death? Have you ever considered this? What words and actions can you express to those who have lost someone eternally? Perhaps they too face the same eternal outcome.

Consider the following as you plan in your own mind how you will minister to those who’ve lost a loved one:

1. They most probably do not have your theological knowledge

2. Never assume their mention of Jesus and God, and His being in control, as knowledge of Him.

3. Do not correct their theology, or their understanding of God – it is NOT the right time.

4. Watch your attitude – really watch it. (Don’t allow your gifted theological knowledge to come across as pride. When we understand their words are empty – gratitude for the knowledge given us can affect our demeanor – don’t let it – too much is at stake.)

5. Be humble in your actions, this is a gifted opportunity for you to show the tender care of Christ, His mercy and His grace in how you act, and interact with the grieving.

6. The separation the unsaved grieving experience is real, their falling apart is an expression of the true state of their heart, of their eternality – yet they do not know it!

7. Practice compassion.

• For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2)

• He has put eternity into man's heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

• Rejoice with those who rejoice, sharing others’ joy, and weep with those who weep, sharing others’ grief (Romans 12:15).

• Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us … so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

#death