Death.

It's one of those things that holds many people's lives captive.  For the unbeliever, death is something that you can build up a measure of machismo about on the outside, but as soon as it's realy knocking on your door and saying "Time to go", even the most hardened souls realize they're not ready.  For the lukewarm believer, the thoughts are mixed.  For the disciple of Christ, while you may not be ooking forward to the actual physical process of dying, departing from your tent to move into your mansion is not something you're really afraid of.

Why am I rambling about death, especially just a week after we all celebrated Jesus' victory over it?  Well honestly it's because over the past 24 hours or so I've been immersed in it, in some ways somewhat trivially, in others, very intimately.

Before some of you start freaking out, no, I didn't get a call from the doctor of anything, so you can set your minds a bit at ease about that.  I'll talk about the more trivial immersions first I suppose.

Last weekend I finally went out and got the fish I've been waiting several years to get -- not anything really special or expensive or anything, just fish that I've always enjoyed seeing everytime I'd go to a pet store/department -- a bala shark (who I was unable to get a buddy for because there was only one left, so I'm getting another Lord willing later this afternoon), two black-fin sharks, two pictus catfish (who I've temporarily nicknamed Flotsam and Jetsam after the eels (or whatever they were) from the Little Mermaid that were always so mischevious), an algae-sucker, and a half-dozen ghost shrimp (most of whom have been eaten already).  Last night when we came back from our niece's softball game, one of my black-fins -- which are typically pretty active and constantly "swim laps" in the tank -- was floating vertically amongst the plastic shrubbery.  It was a shock, and I was sad.  Six days, and one of my faves makes the trip to Long Beach.  :(

This morning I got up when my wife left for work, and the other black fin seems to be having issues as well.  The bala's fine, the algae-sucker is fine, the cats are as ornery as ever, and the few shrimp that are left are fine, so I don't think it's a water issue anymore (though I did a 60% water change and filter flush just in case).  The remaining black-fin seems to have gotten stupid all the sudden, like he either cannot see what he's doing, swimming into things and all.  It seems as though he's on his way out, because while he's still "breathing", he has periods where he just floats around on the currents not puting any effort into swimming at all.  As I said, these black-fins have been nuts, swimming laps back and forth across the tank, so just floating around is very abnormal.  As corny as it sounds, I prayed that he would get better, but I'll do what I can for him in the meantime.

So now to the more intimate.  Quite randomly I read a bulletin yesterday about a woman in London contempating suicide, apparently after the sudden death of her husband and children in a car accident.  Of course I immediately sent a message to her, though I received no response.  While I have not done any checking regarding how valid the story is, and I do have some suspicions, for the time being I'm assuming it to be valid.  So when I came on this morning, I was slapped and quite awakened when I received a response to my message, only it was from a person claiming to be a friend of hers.

She sent a note informing me that the woman I sent the message to "chose to be with her family" (hopefully she was saved, or else she'd never realize that hope) yesterday after the funeral.  I don't know how they do things in London, but even before I was saved I had never been to a funeral where a widow/widower was just left alone for longer than it takes to use the restroom, especially not right after the service, because they're sometimes not in their right minds and you don't want them to do something foolish.  Whatever the circumstances though, I took it hard, as it's been some time since I've been involved in a before-and-after personal scenario of suicide.  I just sat here for a while, contemplating as I do often, but in the way only intimate contact with a situation where someone died can bring about.

I in no way am equating my fish situation with this woman's choice to take her own life; both issues just contain the common denominator of death.  By the way, I just checked in on my remaining black-fin (as I have been every 3-5 minutes for the past 8 hours now), and his gills are no longer moving.  Make that two new residents of Long Beach.

Life is short, brothers and sisters.

As cliche as it has become (how sad is that?), people are dying every minute of every day, the majority of whom do not know Jesus from Judas, and eternally speaking, you know what that means.  While we're sitting on our duffs worrying about what toy we're gonna get for ourselves next, or how we don't have time to talk to people because we're too busy doing our makeup or rushing off to go party somewhere, I pray the Lord rebukes us, as openly as we need it to be.  We're spoiled, bratty little kids most of the time, and way too often we put genuine and sincere needs of lost and dying people aside because we'd rather be happy and smiling then getting down in the dirt with people who need Jesus' love shown them the most.

It's time we wake up and start loving people, not with our words, but with our actions.

Let Jesus' love flow through you, or He just might find a different funnel to use.

In His service, and yours,
jason†