Death

Advice: Stop Being Afraid Of The Wrong Thing! Become Fearless (By Fearing This)! Part 2

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment
person jumping on big rock under gray and white sky during daytime
Photo by The Chaffins on Unsplash

Previously, we talked about the fear that sometimes descends over our culture like an unwelcome blanket, smothering us. And yet, we cling to our fear as a self-soothing exercise. We are used to it

How do we throw away the fear that always seems to linger on our hands, like unwanted gum we are trying to put in the trash?

We can’t entirely eradicate fear.

The reality is that we are tiny little people, and who knows? A comet may arrive in ten minutes, throwing us into another ice age like it did for the dinosaurs. Then we’re hooped!

But this, ironically, like all my best advice, is where we find some of our hope.

What if we didn’t fear “death” (I said THE word!) QUITE so very much?

It is the denial of death that is partially responsible for people living empty, purposeless lives

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

This one fear, the fear of death, instead of being a blanket that twists itself around our neck, strangling us, is the one fear that can ultimately comfort us.

For example, it doesn’t matter to me whether I get two likes or one like on a post (No, that wasn’t 2,000 likes or 1,000 likes – Why do you ask?) when I remember that one day, I will die.

So, one of the best ways to eliminate a bunch of our lingering fears, it turns out, is to confront the biggest, most terrifying fear looming in our bellies’ most bottomless pit.

It’s to confront our mortality.

So, how do we recognize our mortality, though we (kind of) don’t want to?

When we realize that we are resting in the palm of our Saviour’s hand and that His love is the warm blanket that comforts us, we find we can sleep a bit easier, and this life is a little easier to live.

But what if we’re having trouble grasping hold of God as we clench our frightened fists around His Spirit, grasping for something to hold onto?

What if we reach out to touch God, and our fingers, instead, only close around thin air?

Well, let’s return to something I learned in university while wrestling most deeply with this question. (Don’t you find that you thought more interesting things in university? These days, the thing I seem to think about most is when I can next grab some deep-fried chicken or chocolate cheesecake.)

When I wrestled most deeply with this question at University, the philosophical argument called Pascal’s Wager, was a great balm to my soul.

Here it is, summarized. A fuller version can be found here:

  • There is not enough evidence to know with ABSOLUTE certainty that God exists, the mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal began.
  • So, a game is being played with the endpoint of our deaths. What will be the outcome after our death?
  • The MOST RATIONAL choice is NOT to play this game.
  • However, NOT playing the game is not a choice. We all must die therefore we all MUST play the game.
  • When we play the game, we are wagering on God.
  • If we believe there is a God, and there is, we gain ALL.
  • If we believe there is a God and there is not, we lose NOTHING.

Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (…) There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite.

Blaise Pascal

As the song plays, consider asking God, “Am I afraid of the right things?” When we face our fear of death, a most surprising thing happens. Other fears seem to fly away somewhere!

Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?

The Message

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Advice: Stop Being Afraid Of The Wrong Thing! Become Fearless (By Fearing This)! Part 1

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment
girl in white hoodie jacket lying on green grass
Photo by Khashayar Kouchpeydeh on Unsplash

When she was in the hospital, only a few days before her death, my fierce, feisty, 89-and-a-half-year-old grandmother fixed her intense blue eyes on me and said the one thing I never thought she would say.

“Lori,” she said, “I never thought this would happen so soon!”

She was talking about death.

My mind was like one of those old-fashioned calculators that was overheating, trying all different ways to understand what she was saying to me. In the end, was she saying that she was 89 and a half years old and hadn’t figured out that she could die soon? Yup.

That’s exactly what she said.

Of course, the fact that we die was not a truth that my grandmother was wholly unaware of. This fact approached her through all the deaths she witnessed during the Great Depression and the Second World War. However, this knowledge seemed to approach her from the side, not head-on. Unfortunately, she suffered from anxiety in her long life and feared a lot of stuff. But she was too busy fearing other stuff to remember to fear everything!

And so, you’re probably afraid of the wrong things, too.

You cringe at home, cornered up against the wall, afraid. I know. I can see you.

Actually, I can’t see you, but we all kind of live that way.

Sometimes, it feels like a blanket of fear settles over us all. And this fear comforts us somehow, just like a blanket comforts us from the cold. The only problem is that as it comforts, it also eats away at our souls, destroying us.

a neon sign that says fear eats the soul
Photo by Amelia Vu on Unsplash

I pondered how to avoid fear as I read the book The Night The Angels Came about missionary Chrissie Chapman, who chose to spend her life in war-torn Burundi instead of peaceful Britain.

One day, she had a really bad week.

It was a bad week in a way that our first-world minds can’t really wrap our heads around. For example, her child was kidnapped. Yup. Seriously. That same week, a grenade was accidentally thrown into their yard as civil war was fought outside their house, and a gunshot bent the frame of her bedroom window.

Then, she was held up at gunpoint for a bag of rice due (in part) to food scarcity.

I look downstairs at my freezer, which is full of food, and I can’t remember what’s in it. So, I have a hard time relating to food scarcity. What a privileged culture we live in, in so many ways.

And yet, I know precisely how author Chrissie Chapman feels because I’ve had bad weeks, too!

I’ve had a bad week where fear was like a blanket, wrapping itself around my neck and choking me, too.

For example, one day this summer there was a clear blue sky, and the birds were singing. I live in peaceful rural North America, where the deer that eat my tulips are the most irritating intruders. (Why? Why do they have to do that?)

And yet, as I looked around, my heart was a cancer full of fear, consuming me.

What about those things in the news that might happen? What about that stuff I read on social media that might occur? And the worst question is, What if I’m worried about the wrong things?

So, as illustrated in the paragraph above, I can exactly relate to Burundian author Chrissy Chapman and her fears!

I’m just like her because my (peaceful) world makes me feel afraid, too!

And so how do we throw off the blanket of suffocating fear?

Let’s talk about that next Tuesday in Part 2 of this post.

For now, let’s constantly ponder . . . (that thing we never think about, that we all pretend will never happen).

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

Shhh. . . but:

(You learn more at a funeral than at a feast)

The Message

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