Good Monsters: Death
When I was in seminary, I had this image/vision that just came to me one day. In this vision, I was a child, and I was sitting on Jesus’ lap, and he was reading a book to me in the middle of a couch. Surrounding us and sitting next to us were all these monsters, and when I say monsters think of them as monsters that are in Muppet form (bright and friendly), and they’re all smiling the most genuine, loving, joy filled smiles ever. I think about this vision a pretty good bit, especially when I feel afraid or down. This vision reminds me in a subtle, but powerful way that God will transform every “monster” that we have in our lives.
Death is a monster. Scripture tells us that death is the ultimate enemy (Gen 3:2-3) that preys upon us all our lives. Always crouching at the door, the event that we construct everything we do while we’re living to avoid. For some people, the experience of death doesn’t come until later in life when their family and friends are old, lives have been lived and the time seems right. Others, seem to be surrounded by death and the monsters of life since they took their first breath. I’m one of those people and for that, I’m grateful.
Death has been looking over my shoulder my entire life. When I was 18 months old, I was diagnosed with Stage 4 T-Cell Leukemia, in the 90’s, cancer treatments were not near what they are now. When I relapsed after the prescribed treatments my family was left with one option and one chance, a bone marrow transplant. Obviously, it worked and I’m not a ghost writing this letter.
Years later, I was greeted by death again. I had a major brain bleed at 9 years old. I was terrified, I couldn’t walk straight, my eyes were crossed, I was seeing double and to top it all off I couldn’t feel anything on the left side of my body or taste. Three surgeries were needed to remove and repair the damage done. Surgery 1 was nerve wracking for me and my family, but after 8 hours I came out fine. Surgery 2, was different, the operation itself went well but the moments leading up to it? Not so much. My parents and I were in a pre-op meeting, keep in mind I’m 9, and the doctor mentions that I may die. Until this instant, my parents had done an incredible job of protecting me from thinking about death. Like, I’d never thought about it in a personal way. Laying on the MRI table the next I day, just hours before my second brain surgery, I remember crying and praying our loud “God I don’t want to die. Please don’t let me die”. Waking up from that surgery was the first time that I realized that God was listening to me and the day that I became unafraid of death. Surgery 3 was “no biggie” for me! I was confident, fearless and even woke up as they were sawing through my skull, unafraid.
Being fearless in the face of death was something that I had become embraced and a trait that people admired. At 23, my life came around full circle. I was diagnosed with stage 2 kidney cancer, secondary cancers aren’t a surprise but at 23 it hit me hard, and I spiraled into uncontrollable depression and anxiety. I will never forget this moment in life. I was living with my dad at the time and had the most intense, and only, panic attack in my life. After I woke my dad up, we sat on a couch in my room and I finally broke, after all the years of fighting and being stronger than I needed to be I had reached the end of myself. That night I told my dad, “I’m tired of this, I’m tired of being sick, being afraid, and I just want to go home”, that shook my dad up pretty good. As difficult, and not fun as that moment was, it was maybe the most freeing moment of my life, the moment when I embraced death. I longed for it. I longed for the gift of heaven and the fullness of God that seemed to be just out of reach my whole life, for the promise given to us in Revelation 21:4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’[a] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”. Death is a monster, the enemy, but God in his love and mercy has defeated death, through death, and has given us new life through Jesus’ resurrection. No longer something to be feared but embraced. Death is a Good Monster.