Last Sunday, being 9/11, the preacher at the church I attended talked about disasters. None of us can fail to have been moved by the images we have seen over and over again of the Twin Towers falling and the statistics which followed of the number of those who had died. The piece of cold data which particularly struck me this year was the number of children whose mum or dad didn't return home from work that day. Three thousand. A boy in my step-son's class at school lost his dad.
I am sure we have all thought of and prayed for those left bereaved by that terrible tragedy.
Equally, a good friend of mine lost one of her colleagues in the 7/7 London bombing. She was one of the last to be identified as dead, from DNA alone – she had almost certainly been close to one of the bombers in the train, going to work like any other day.
Even on a small scale, tragedy can strike quickly and with no warning. Most of us probably know someone who has lost a loved one in a freak accident, or been struck down by a disease while they were still young. Nine years ago my first husband contracted meningitis and in five days he was gone, leaving me with three children aged 10, 15 and 17. I can't even begin to tell you how terrible that was.
The truth is, we don't like to think about these things. If we do think about them, it's usually to hope that it doesn't happen to us or anyone we love – or happen again. But when forced to think, most of us, at some time or other, ask the question, 'Why?'
Jesus' answer to the question 'why' takes us to a different perspective, our preacher told us on Sunday. When Jesus was talking about the 18 people who died when the Tower of Siloam fell he said to the people who were listening, 'Do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?' The answer was, no. Then he went on to say to his listeners that unless they repented they would all likewise perish. Sobering words. Death comes to all of us. Our lives are like a flower of the field, James tells us, echoing the words of one of the psalmists – blooming briefly for a moment, then quickly gone.
Fortunately, there is hope. Because God, who is love, reached down to us in the person of his son, Jesus, who died in our place (we deserve it, he didn't), making the way for us to enter eternity spotlessly clean . . . to a beautiful place . . . forever. We have a choice. Death - for those who have turned to God - is to 'Take hold of the life that is truly life', as Paul wrote to Timothy. Physical death is not the end. I find that incredibly moving.
Should this thought of eternal destiny colour our lives? I think we can all answer that for ourselves.
If you have read this far and are wondering what this piece is doing on the Dernier Publishing blog, it's because our aim is to produce exciting, fun stories which will point the way to Jesus. We are passionate about books which will encourage and inspire young people in their faith and show non-church kids what they are missing! We can give our children wonderful birthday presents and fun holidays, we can give them organic food and swimming lessons, but at the end of the day, it is their eternal destiny that matters most of all.
May the Lord bless you, and all the children you love :-)
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