THE IMPORTANCE OF INVOLVING OTHERS
A man I know found out last year he had terminal cancer. He was a doctor and knew about dying, and he didn?t want to make his family and friends suffer through that with him. So he kept his secret. And died. Everybody said how brave he was to bear his suffering in silence and not tell everybody, and so on and so forth. But privately his family and friends said how angry they were that he didn?t need them, didn?t trust their strength. And it hurt that he didn?t say goodbye.
-- ROBERT FULGHUM

SECRET OF HAPPY DEATH
As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.
-- LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452?1519)

GOD IS BEHIND ALL DEATH
All humanity is of one Author, and is one volume; when one dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God?s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.
-- JOHN DONNE (1572?1631)

WHAT JESUS DID TO DEATH
Christ taught an astonishing thing about physical death: not merely that it is an experience robbed of its terror, but that as an experience it does not exist at all. To ?sleep in Christ,? ?depart and be with Christ,? ?fall asleep,??these are the expressions the New Testament uses. It is high time the ?icy river,? ?the gloomy portal,? ?the bitter pains,? and all the rest of the melancholy images were brought face to face with the fact: Jesus Christ has abolished death.
-- J. B. PHILLIPS (1906?1982)

FROM DEATH TO LIFE
Death is God?s delightful way of giving us life.
-- OSWALD CHAMBERS (1874?1917)

DEATH AS A DOOR
Death is not the end; it is only a new beginning. Death is not the master of the house; he is only the porter at the King?s lodge, appointed to open the gate and let the King?s guests into the realm of eternal day. JOHN HENRY JOWETT (1864?1923)

BIBLICAL CONNECTIONS
THE MEANING OF DEATH

Lot of all.

None of us can hold back our spirit from departing. None of us has the power to prevent the day of our death. There is no escaping that obligation, that dark battle. And in the face of death, wickedness will certainly not rescue those who practice it. --Eccles. 8:8


And just as it is destined that each person dies only once and after that comes judgment. --Hebrews 9:27

Conquered by Christ.

We are sure of this because Christ rose from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. --Romans 6:9

I am the living one who died. Look, I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave. --Rev. 1:18

Pray to be prepared for.

Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered, and that my life is fleeing away. --Psalm 39:4

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