GREAT BEAUTY IN DEATH

   ‘This is going on my favorite time of the year!’ I heard my father say one late Autumn afternoon. The air was translucent with smoky haze as the children next door made a game of jumping into the neighbor’s freshly raked piles of leaves. The sun gave evermore sparingly of its light and the yellow jackets drowsed on the sticky sweet bushels of grapes and pears. There would surely be ice on the mud puddles in the morning to seal the bleakness of death as the leaves were fallen to the ground to be settled by cold November’s rain and buried under December’s snow.
Death! Everything has its own given season of demise and must die. Oh but what great beauty there can be in death! A fire is at its most lovely just before the bright orange embers fade with plumes of blue flame among the white ashes. David lamented the death of Saul and Jonathan and somehow found great beauty there:
   “The beauty of Israel is slain upon the high places: how are the mighty fallen!”
   II Samuel 1:19
   There is something so wonderful, beautiful and unique about a child of God who has served and loved His Savior all his days, and then is called Home. We weep and lament at the impending death of a loved one, but as the Lord draws near to the bed of sorrows and counts the labored breaths and the withering beats of the heart, He smiles and in some mysterious way, is pleased at that precious moment of death!
   “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”
   Psalms 116:15
   Perhaps He is happy that our suffering can finally be over. Maybe the Lord just loves to see the expressions on our faces when the instant transformation from death to eternal life takes away our pain and we see Him and Heaven for the first time. Possibly the Father is anxious to show us all He has for us because we chose to love and trust His dear Son:
   “That in the ages to come He might shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”  Ephesians 2:7
   Great beauty in death! Let’s thank Him that even at this somber time, we are under His watchful eye and interest if we indeed know and trust Him as Our Savior. –M. Jewell