More than one way to die during lockdown

From a Guest Blogger

For the past 12 months we’ve had a number of lockdowns with warnings to, “Stay at home, save lives”.  During this time I’ve heard about many deaths …

• So many deaths from coronavirus in the news, mercifully none personally known to me. 
• Unexpected cancer diagnosis; discovered after a routine test, a fall, a sudden new symptom.  Then a devastating prognosis – a few weeks or months, and death comes.
• The end of the road after years of cancer treatment; nothing left to be done; a prognosis of weeks or months reduced to days, then hours, and death comes.
• A freak accident; drowning in a pond, a fall from a roof, a head on collision.  In a moment, death comes.
• A sudden heart attack; a father in his fifties, a neighbour in his sixties, another in his thirties, a 48 year old brother, a 16 year old boy.  Without warning, no time to say goodbye, but death comes. 
• A massive stroke, a diabetic coma, a brain haemorrhage; even a murder and a suicide in one family in one month. 

The virus is not the only thing that can kill us.  Whether it’s the peaceful death in his sleep of an elderly grandfather in his nineties, or the devastating loss of a child; whether out of the blue, or the inevitable end of a horrible disease; whether a welcome relief after horrible suffering, or the shock of someone you love being snatched away too soon; death comes, and (not wishing to be morbid) it’s coming to all of us. 

“Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.  He comes forth like a flower and fades away; He flees like a shadow and does not continue. 
Since his days are determined, the number of his months is with You [God];
And [God has] set his limits so that he cannot pass.” Job 14:1,2,5
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Life is fragile and death is certain.  Our days are numbered.  No one escapes.
But Jesus said:
“I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.  Do you believe this?”  John 11:25