Overcoming fear of death

By Mia Pohlman

A couple of weeks ago, my grandpa died. He was a member of a generation I am sad to see passing away; a generation of people whose straightforward wisdom and code of honor has much to teach our current culture.

My grandpa had many qualities that mark the rural population of his generation: he was a farmer for whom faith was a simple matter. He was unassuming and didn't expect anything to be given to him; this is what freed him to be grateful for everything he did have, and to be generous with his time and resources, sharing them with anyone who needed help. He knew what it meant to work hard to cultivate, and also what it meant to accept life's circumstances. The way he fought for life and also accepted his death through the very end was a testament to that.

Our culture is obsessed with youth: the media reveres teenage celebrities. Stores carry aisles of makeup and skincare products. Models in advertisements are in their thirties or younger, and airbrushed.

This, I think, is because of our culture's fear of death, our disgust with suffering. The world tells us to do anything to avoid feeling pain, and offers many remedies for it. And yet, none of these things make us truly, lastingly happy.

Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree in Eden because they didn't want to die. They were unwilling to trust God with the unknown. Rather than be obedient, they tried to keep themselves from suffering, from dying.

It is an honest, good desire; we were not created for death, and God wants us to love life and live abundantly. Yet, fearing death to the point of disobedience is twisting our greatest gift, the gift that we are like God, made in God's image, but are not God. We are human.

One thing we as humans can do that God cannot is die. This ability is what makes us distinctly human and not God. And it is very good to be human; God gives dignity to it when he comes as a man to save us from spiritual and physical death.

I think this is why we are so unhappy when we chase youth, avoid pain and fear death: if we deny our ability to die, we deny a fundamental part of our identity as humans. We don't need to be afraid of who we are; God has loved us and saved us.

I don't think this means we should romanticize death or fixate on it. It definitely does not mean we should hurry it on. I think what it means is that we can realistically put death in its proper order. We are created to live fully and courageously, to fight for life with all we are, to love living all the days God gives us -- that is a beautiful thing. Then when death happens to us by natural causes, it is not something to fear.

We are meant to live forever. But we can't achieve this for ourselves; Jesus died and was raised for us. We can trust him, believe in him and abandon ourselves to him. We can someday accept what looks to us like dying in order to come face-to-face with God and be raised from the dead.