HELP ME GIVE IT UP
This is
a particularly difficult thing to speak about at this time. I don’t need to
develop the reason right now other than to say that the body and mind of a very
dear friend and a great man of God is under attack. I mention the difficulty of
speaking about it only so that you won’t think I’m being glib!
Life is
and should be precious to us. We see and feel that truth in a million ways
don’t we. And why wouldn’t it be this way for most of us? This means that even
Christians who believe in life with Christ after death are loath to leave this
place with all its warm relationships and sheer pleasure.
Yes, we
cheerfully sing, “This World is Not My Home” but it’s the only home we’ve known
all our lives and it is God’s gift to us so how could we not, at some level,
regret leaving it. Bless me, even at airports when our beloved is leaving for a
longish period there are tears and hugs, almost a refusal to let them go.
Should it be surprising that we express the fear of “loss” of them in the
feverish way we try to prolong their life when it seems clear they are heading
out of our lives.
Still,
in our bones we know we can’t put off the day forever. It’s appointed! Wouldn’t
it be fine if we (not just the dying one—but the family and friends) were so
shaped and assured that we could “give them up” in an assured and glorious way?
Not in a
life-denying way, mark you, but doing it after we have (as Robert Browning put
it) “earned” our death by living life to the full in joyful integrity. There are
things worth dying for and there is a time when it’s okay to “lay
yourself down with a will,” as Robert Louis Stevenson expressed it.
In the
movie, El Cid lies mortally wounded with an arrow deep in his chest. He’s sure
to die but his adoring wife wants to prolong it by mere hours by having the
arrow removed even though it will weaken him. He resists her pleas because he
must address the army that has lost heart because they think he’s dead and
think they will have to face the enemy without him. He keeps the arrow and
speeds his death so that he can do something worthy of his having lived—a life
he has lived so well and honorably. He tenderly tells her, “You can’t save
my life. You must help me to give it up.”
We all
need that kind of help. When Death comes calling, and will not this time go
away without us, we need friends and family to help us give it up in a way
that’s appropriate. There aren’t many scenes more impressive than those where
vibrant faith in Jesus Christ is facing death with assured sorrow.
But long
before we’re on our deathbeds we need that kind of help. We need
people to help us not to hoard the life we’ve been given. We desperately need
help to keep us from spending it selfishly on our own ease and we need people
around us who will help us to be generous with it.
During a
dangerous viral outbreak a husband didn’t want his doctor wife to put their
life together at risk by getting involved. Who can’t understand that? But who
can’t be thrilled and pleased by her response? She told him, “I love you with
all of my heart, my dear, but you mustn’t make it hard for me to do what’s
right.”
She was
telling him, “Help me give it up.”
And then
there was the One who faced the most momentous moment in his life and he called
on three of his dear friends to come with him to a garden and help him give it
up.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, theabidingword.com.
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