Death Wakens Awareness....To Life/Love

It is a season of mourning in our family...

 Now we bid fond earthly farewell

to James's (my husband's) beloved 93 year old mother,

who passed away on Friday.

(obituary HERE)

How we will miss her,

but how we rejoice that she is released from her

weary and worn out body.

Dear mother,

No more precious shared lunches and coffees and chats...

or birthday celebrations

(Cake decorating credit goes to my sister-in-law)

or being greeted by your sweet, welcoming smile

from your chair where you delighted in watching birds

and people come and go.

No more hardships for you, dear mother!

Your chair is empty...

Once again death rouses awareness...

Death, is a Certain Doorway through which all will disappear

A sacred, solemn, Supreme Inevitability

And when its Immutable Must summons one near and dear

It tunes Thought to Time's Holy Lease hinged to eternity

Death wakens re-awareness to the gift of Here and Now

It spotlights love's track-record forged by what we do and say

And brings us boldly face to face with ourselves, somehow

And Precious Opportunity afforded in Today

Death stirs in us a sense of so much more than meets the eye

The Part no lens can captivate, and knowledge cannot quell 

It bids us ponder somberly love's breath-by-breath reply

To He who gave himself to break the curse of death and hell  

Death rouses us to look at life and its impending goal

It begs for answers to questions none should flee or ignore   

'What doth it profit us to gain the world and lose our soul?

And who can carry anything through death's leveling Door?

Death wakens fresh awareness to the preciousness of 'us' 

And how it is a privilege to live to give and share

Each others joys and sorrows;  then, rather than fret and fuss

Or point accusing fingers, to fold them in thankful prayer 

 © Janet Martin

1 Cor.15:53-58

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, 

and this mortal must put on immortality.

 54 So when this corruptible has put on incorruption,

and this mortal has put on immortality, 

then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written:

 “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

55 “O[n] Death, where is your sting?

O Hades, where is your victory?”

56 The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. 

57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, 

be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work 

of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.