Do not accumulate for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But accumulate for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:19-21
I thought my grandmother would outlive us all. She was born in 1916 and had seen and experienced more than I can imagine. Even when she fell and broke her hip a couple of years ago, she recovered, and it never seemed like she was finished. She loved to go into town and get her hair done and run errands. Any of her caretakers who wouldn’t drive her around she dismissed out of hand. She was a feisty country girl who never stopped tending her plants, even though she wasn’t able to get out in the garden for the last several years. And she always sent us grandkids a crisp five dollar bill on our birthdays. And there are a lot of us.
Just before her 94th birthday, my grandmother died in her sleep.
Alice Elvina McCracken was one of those larger than life characters who was revered by all who knew her. She was mostly known for her influence and wisdom and her work on the missions council of her church. As much as I didn’t really believe it was going to happen, her death was inevitable.
Even now, over 6 months after her death, I’m looking outside at the green grass and the birds flying, and I find it hard to imagine her death as a reality. I almost expect that the next time I visit her house in the countryside of Ohio where my parents now live, I will find her waiting for us on the front porch with rhubarb, cookies, and Tang on the kitchen table.
I think my grandmother was well aware of her own fragility. I think she lived with her death in mind. And I think she might encourage us to do the same.
I don’t mean we should live in a “We’re all gonna die!” freak out mode, but that we should live our lives with a sense of purpose. Living with our deaths in mind means to live our lives so that at the end, we can look back and know that our lives meant something. At the end, we can look back and know that we fulfilled our purpose, and did our best to honor our Creator.
Living with our deaths in mind means that right now, at each consecutive moment, we seek to have this mindset:
My confident hope is that I will in no way be ashamed but that with complete boldness, even now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether I live or die. For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. Now if I am to go on living in the body, this will mean productive work for me, yet I don’t know which I prefer: I feel torn between the two, because I have a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far, but it is more vital for your sake that I remain in the body. And since I am sure of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for the sake of your progress and joy in the faith, so that what you can be proud of may increase because of me in Christ Jesus, when I come back to you.
Philippians 1:20-26
And living with our deaths in mind means looking forward to the end, when we will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things, you will be ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your master.” -Matthew 25:23
May we be people who are known, as my grandmother was known, for living our lives with our deaths in mind.
