A Prayer for What to Do When Someone You Love Dies

　　By Chris Eyte

　　Bible Reading

　　"yet we are confident and satisfied to be out of the body and at home with the Lord." - 2 Cor. 5:8

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　　So I agreed to write this devotional on what to do when someone you love dies - and two days later a dear friend from my church swam in the sea and then dropped dead. It was his birthday and he had been in good health, enjoying his day. I, and many others, still reel from the shock of it. We just don’t understand these things. Then I looked at the video from my 18th birthday party, nearly 30 years ago, and saw the people there talking and laughing with me. My father, grandma, grandad, nan (other grandmother), aunt, godmother’s husband, older cousins, and an older family friend - all of them are gone now. I helped carry all of them to their graves with the coffins on my shoulder, as a pallbearer at the funerals.

　　I think of my ex-girlfriend who was hit by a car and the deep wells of grief. I think of my friend Rob, fighting so hard for life but taken from cancer in his early 20s. I think of my old mentor John, fatherlike, and the time saying goodbye to him at the hospice before he passed away from cancer. How he laid hands on me and prayed the Lord’s prayer in Welsh. How I read the last chapter of The Last Battle by CS Lewis, on the train home after bidding farewell, about the journey to heaven. One of the fondest memories of my life was years before, standing in his lounge holding hands with John and his wife, the three of us praying. She was a lovely lady, and another who has gone to be with the Lord.

　　Death leaves a void, a blank space, an immobile darkness. We are surrounded by the ghosts in our minds and speak to them there in the memories. But it seems so hopeless. They aren’t really there. As my mum says, you seemingly become just a photo on the wall. On the bus back from my church friend’s funeral today, who died after sea-swimming, I had a picture in my mind. I imagined the deepness of the ocean and falling down into the depths, where there is a stygian empty space, devoid of meaning or feeling. And I thought that that is what the reality of death is like for us human beings.

　　However, here’s the thing. At the bottom of those death waters, where it is so cold and unmerciful, I saw a cross lying on the ocean floor and it was burning brightly. Burning! And that is the hope we hold fast as followers of the Way: Jesus himself. He came into this world to devastate the schemes of hell and to kill death. Therefore, we grieve, and we do, but we are “not like those without hope.” God himself plunged into the bottom of the nightmare to bring life.

　　What can you do when someone you love dies? I once asked John that same question, and his answer was simple. You thank God that they have been in your life, and you trust them to Him. “Absent from the body, present with the Lord,” as it says in 2 Corinthians 5:8.

　　From God’s sublime perspective of time, every human being throughout history is alive. The Bible says: ‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen/to come.’ Therefore, we press on and live our lives within God, encouraging ourselves in the Lord. My mentor John once told me about a church minister who had MRSA, aged 78, and he visited him in hospital. This minister was a kind man, and he had become very thin. He turned to John and said; “I’m weak.” John didn’t know how to reply, but said: “Well, we love Jesus.” “Oh, John,” the minister replied. “Jesus suffered.”

　　Let's pray:

　　Father of the heavenly lights. Every night I go to sleep, trusting that I will wake up in the morning. And I do. Thank you that I can trust you for the future. Because of your love for me, when I go to sleep and leave my mortal coil, you will wake me up. You know my pain for loved ones lost, and to you, all are alive. I stir myself today, acknowledging my grief but declaring my trust in you. You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And that’s enough for me.

　　In Jesus’ holy name. Amen!