Blessing During Life's Final Journey
Summer 2023
Christian women are the life-givers of their homes and culture. To be life-givers in encouraging and biblical ways, they must be grounded in the truth of God’s Word. We naturally think of women as life-givers when a baby is born, but in all of life’s seasons, godly women encourage others, even at the end of life. Although life’s end seems antithetical to life-giving, death is a part of life, and for believers, is the gateway to eternal life. Recent deaths of friends, young and old, as well as serious illnesses of loved ones, have spawned my thoughts regarding end of life. While sorrow, grief, sighing, and tears are natural parts of grieving, Christian women’s anchor in Christ and His truth enable them to support and encourage both the dying and the grieving.
Revelation 14:13, “I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord…Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them.” Matthew Henry noted that this verse shows “the blessedness of all the faithful saints and servants of God both in death and after death.” This certain blessing sent by a heavenly voice and recorded by the apostle John brings sweet assurance and anchoring comfort. Dying and death are hardly thought of as a blessing, but those in Christ walk through the enemy Death’s camp with a victorious step. The battle was won by our Savior Jesus Christ at the cross so that “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54). When doubts and fears arise, McCheyne’s words support the soul, “But when fear is at its height, Jesus comes and all is light.” Those who die “in the Lord” are certainly blessed, not as those unbelievers who “die in their sins” (John 8:24). We are certain that God’s dear children are not abandoned at the end, for “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints” (Psalm 116:15). The Spirit’s sweet word of “resting from their labors,” is a new task for His faithful children, knowing their labors are not in vain in the Lord. That “their do works follow them” is a promise of hope that soon our precious loved one will hear God’s “well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
While many of us learn how to deal with declining loved ones when their crisis happens, learning beforehand can also bring much comfort to fearful hearts. The book Sunsets: Reflections for Life’s Final Journey by Deborah Howard, a Reformed Christian Hospice nurse, is a treasure of practical helps with a biblical perspective to understand life’s final journey. The Lord brought Sunsets into my life when my mother suffered a debilitating stroke six months before her homegoing. What I learned strengthened God’s truth in my own soul to trust Him more, rather than to fall into despondency and grief. The book describes the physical changes in the normal process of dying to calm fearful hearts.
Understanding that a Christian’s death is the gateway to heaven’s glory, we are enabled to encourage our loved one by singing favorite hymns, reading the Scripture, praying for God’s grace, and tenderly loving with gentle touches and soft words. Exercising such spiritual graces around a deathbed is one of the most holy and life-giving blessings on earth. Matthew Henry notes that it is “preserved and published by writing…that the people of God might have recourse to it for their support and comfort upon all occasions.”
Mrs. B. Mooney