mortifying mortality

I feel very mortal today. Maybe it's the lack of sleep as I sat up until 3am watching HGTV and wishing on every star in the sky that I could fall into a deep sleep. Maybe it's the struggles I see in the faces of the people around me: the coworker who bears the marks on her body of the radiation for breast cancer that she is currently undergoing; maybe it's the two friends who have been trying to get pregnant for over a year and feel more discouraged with every false test; maybe it's the other coworker who is in Tennessee holding her non-Christian mother's hand as she slips from her current coma into the next life - one that my dear friend knows will bring her mom into eternal judgment for her stubborn determination to hold her own life away from her Savior's hands; or the friends of a friend that just lost their little baby boy completely unexpectedly when they went in for a routine C-Section; or maybe it's just because I feel my mortality in my aching, tired body today.

I was helping the girl that offices next to me prepare the church for a funeral today, and I realized how accustomed we all become with death. Until it directly affects us - the loss of a loved one or a diagnosis that suddenly brings our inevitable doom to light - we have a tendency to not think much of death, or meditate on it, at all. How many times have I heard - "Joe Somebody died last week. So sad." In the hallways or even from my own lips. But we all know we're headed in that direction, hopefully at an old age, but that is not promised to us at all and it would be presumptuous of us to suppose it.

So, should we meditate on death as I earlier mentioned? What is to be gained of it? I certainly don't think we should let our minds be preoccupied with our death or that of our loved ones to the point that we cling more tightly and live less freely under the bondage of our own mortality. But I also don't think we are ever meant to live our lives as though we are not mortal. Christians are especially bad about this. We're going to heaven, anyway, so why think about our end - or even - the end is just the beginning! True. But it must remain that we have only one earthly life. This is it. We may have eternal life, but we are not immortal. We'll never get this mortal one back. And nothing in Scripture ever says that God takes our mortal lives lightly in context of our eternal lives. If that were the case, then He would give us no instruction and show no concern for the sanctification of our mortal selves if He ever intended us to blithely slip our way through this life on earth. With Christ as our example, we have a responsibility to take this life very seriously.

I ramble for what purpose? Merely to re-route us to where we began. If we are to take our lives seriously, then it is necessary from time to time to understand and meditate on the mortal nature of this life. It occurs to me that, in a way, to live life in light of our eternity with God is also in part to live life in light of our impending death. This is all we have on this earth, these relationships that we make will be the only fallen relationships that we will experience. Let's get everything out of them that we can. Let's be the Body, encourage one another, cry with one another, be quick to confront sin, quick to forgive sin, and even quicker to love sinners. None of us are immortal before our death. It's one of life's best equalizers. And, most of all, let's teach and learn from each other how to be mortal Christians, because that's what we are.

I rambled on for a while... to get some thoughts out there, and to clear my head. But, as always, with the hope that possibly something that I'm going through and struggling with will have the benefit of touching someone else. My thoughts and struggles aren't private, because I know they're not new with my experience of them. We are all in this together, let's continue the conversation with each other as long as we're given breath.

I live today in light of my mortality, and yet, come quickly, Lord Jesus.