“Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well.” ~ Jack Kornfield
One thing is for certain: our lives are filled with numerous instances of beginnings and endings. Beginnings can be frightening or exciting. They can be dreaded or welcomed. I remember my beginning of school. I went to kindergarten. I knew where the building was located as we had passed it many times in the car. My mom knew that I was really nervous about beginning. She spoke to the teacher about me as I went down the hall to my classroom.
She apparently had a very good, and long, conversation with the principal and my teacher. I’m sure she was confident leaving me behind. She left the building, got into her car, and drove back home. When she arrived, I was sitting outside the garage waiting for her to come home. She wasn’t going to leave me at school! Needless to say, it was a quick return back to a teacher who was worried about losing a student on the first day of school.
Well, things changed. I ended up loving school. As a matter of fact, my love for school was so great that I no longer feared a new year beginning. Instead, I feared the present year ending. I loved school and didn’t want to have three months of nothing to do in the summer. When I was old enough — my high school years — I took summer school so that I didn’t have to endure an “end” to school. It also gave me great opportunities as I took many required courses in the summer that opened my school year up to more electives.
Beginnings and endings can produce anxiety. They can also produce great fear. Many people experience that when they think about the end of their lives. We have all experienced that sometime in our early lives. We might have been introduced to death with the loss of a pet. Maybe it was the loss of a neighbor or the loss of a grandparent. For some, it might have even been the untimely loss of a parent or sibling.
The fact of the matter is that for many people death is feared. It shouldn’t be, however. Death is just one ending that leads to an eternal beginning. When we close out the chapter of our lives here on earth, we have the opportunity to go to the Lord and live with Him forever. Yes, live. We don’t die. Oh, maybe our bodies do. However, our souls are eternal and they go home to the Lord.
As Christians, we do not believe in death. We believe in what comes after death: eternal life. Our earthly beginning has an earthly ending but that ending opens a new, glorious, and eternal reality. “Make peace with that and all will be well.”
FAITH ACTION: Pray for those whose end of life is nearing, that their faith may bring them peace as well as confidence in what is to come.