over and over again

I went to book club today for the first time since my mom died.

I knew it would be hard.

And it was.

But the Lord used it as another stepping stone in this paradoxical process called grief.

As soon as I got there, the ladies were talking about a funeral that many of them had been to that morning, of a 58-year-old man who had died of a heart attack, leaving behind a wife and three children.

They said, "As far as funerals go, it was one of the best."

Of course it made me think of Mom straight away.

Then as we got settled with our tea, the hostess launched into the devotion. Because her mind was so much on the funeral she had attended that morning, she decided to speak on the topic of death.

Great.

I was coping okay, until the very end of the devotion, when one of the ladies, said, "Shame, Kate."

And that was it.

But in spite of the tears, I am still glad that I went. It was healing, like a soothing balm on a wound that keeps re-opening.

The hostess read from the last book that John Stott wrote before he died, entitled "Radical Disciple." The last of eight chapters in the book addresses Christian death.

Stott makes the point that life comes through death. We are all born to die. Even Jesus had to be born so that he could die, so that eternal life could be possible. And so we, too, have to die in order to experience life, on a multitude of levels.

If we want to experience eternal life, we have to pass through death first.

And not just once, but day after day. Every day we must die to self, every day we must take up our cross.

Yet death is so unnatural. Herein lies the paradox. One of the women in my book club shared a bit about what had been preached on during the funeral this morning, from the story of Lazarus in John 11. Apparently the preacher had commented on how Jesus wept for Lazarus, but also that Jesus was angered by death, by this intruder that was not meant to be, this intruder that causes separation and grief.

Then there is the consideration of fruit born out of seeds that have died. As Jesus says in John 12:24, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."

May this be my prayer and aspiration: that not only in my life but also in my death, it would please the Lord to bear much fruit from my humble seed.