Terminal.

It’s Thursday night and I’m staring at my keyboard as our dryer is gently humming in the background. I wasn’t sure what to write for my first blog post back after tax season and even with an idea in my head,
the words come slow.

I’m still recovering.
So be patient with me.

This week, as I was mulling over what I wanted to write about,
an interview was shared with me between a local pastor and the old director of the bible camp I used to volunteer at.
The directors name is Bruce Morock. And he’s dying of cancer.

It’s been many years since I spent time around the good humored man with the big bushy eyebrows who told me his last name was “Less stone, Morock.” But I couldn’t help but notice how much he’s aged and how thin he looked on camera.

Interested to hear about his diagnosis, as well as how his faith has sustained him through it, I clicked on the video and began listening to the interview.

In it, Bruce admits that he has struggled with understanding God’s sovereignty after learning he had terminal cancer, but he also describes the reality of knowing that he is going to die as a “gentle grace” since it has allowed him to take advantage of each new day and get prepared to leave his loved ones behind and meet his Savior.

After sharing that he was “supposed” to die months ago and still hasn’t, Bruce shakes his head, smiles to himself and then makes this statement-

“The fact is, we are all terminal.”

Out of all the comments made during the interview,
those words moved me the most.

To be honest, I clicked on the video because I wanted to hear about how my old camp director was dying, forgetting all the while,
that I am dying too.

I know that sounds morbid, but its true.
And how easily we forget it.

We think we’re invincible. We think we’re indestructible.
And we don’t think about our deaths because we’re young, or active, or healthy…. or distracted.

Death is ugly. It’s uncomfortable. It’s scary. It’s sad.
But it’s also real. And it’s unavoidable. For every one of us.

Most people would pity someone like Bruce Morock.
No one wants to die of Cancer.
But Bruce has something many of us don’t have.

He has a unique understanding of the brevity of this life and Gods sovereignty over all of it. He has a settled acceptance of death,
for to him- “to live is Christ, to die is gain.”
And he has a beautiful perspective on the gift of each new day, and the opportunity we have to use it for Gods glory.

I wonder if it’s a little humorous to God how we wake up each morning, breathe his air and walk on his earth and think that somehow we are in control of our lives. Yet it’s his grace that allows us to rise each morning. It’s his grace that allows us to live and move and have our being. We aren’t in control of anything. We aren’t guaranteed anything. And we aren’t owed anything.

Each day we’re given is a bonus we don’t deserve.

But instead of living in gratefulness, and expectation of the life that is to come, we live our lives in a blur, believing we have an endless supply of days here on this Earth.

One of my favorite poems by Dylan Thomas says this-

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.“

Too many, like the men in this poem, learn too late that their short time on this earth was wasted on themselves-their pleasure, their greed. Don’t let that be your story. Don’t believe the lie that you’re invincible. Your flesh and your heart will fail- but God’s love never fails! He is the creator and sustainer of time and eternity, the resurrection and the life, the beginning and the end. Turn to Jesus and put your faith in him! Thank him for his grace! Live for his honor!

Only in him, can you “rage, rage against the dying of the light!”

Unlike my old camp director,
most of us don’t know when we’re going to die.
But we know that death is coming.
Our diagnosis is one and the same.

We are terminal.
Are you ready?