There is Life even in death

It is indeed sad when someone we love so much leaves us. Left us with the trail of memories shared, laughter, tears, ups and downs, and all sorts of things. We cry, we cry our heart out. We cry until there's no voice from us anymore. They say that "life is uncertain, today you live, tomorrow you die.". We can never be sure how long we will stay beside the ones we love. How much time we can still spend time with them. Our life are like candles that melts as time goes by. This blog is about what we can benefit from death. Yes, the death! We can benefit from death.

It was a fresh start for us since its just the new year of 2015. Our family decided that it is high time that we need to renovate several portions of the house. Everything is on their right courses when the unexpected event suddenly shatter everything. My dad fell from a 6 foot elevated step, head first, I was awaken by the impact of his head to the concrete floor. for over five minutes he is not conscious, no response from all of us. To make long awful story short; he died at the age of 55 years old. He left us and I became an instant father to my siblings. My mom was so broke, Good thing we all are Christians, so no one went drunk due to what happened. We continue to live our lives (work, school, daily chores and everything) it just that we miss dad, so much!

9 months passed after dad went home to God. As I've said we live our lives as normal as we can, until this same feeling broke like an alarm to each and everyone of us. My sister who's battling SLE for five (5) years already, died due to heart failure. Her condition targeted her heart making it beat 33 bpm, instead of 65-100 which is the normal rate. It was indeed painful from the bones of what happened. Two of the important people in my life left me all of a sudden. Sad to say I was not with both of them when they left. If I was not with the Lord, I will surely follow them; to commit suicide so I will not feel the pain anymore, but God still has his plan for me and my family and here's how it goes.

Apostle Paul once said to the church in Philippi "For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."  Doesn't make any sense right? What can you gain from death when you lost everything? is that possible? YES it is! This is what my blog is for, the Lord made me realized that even if he took them away from us instantly He still remains the same. One thing that I learned after my sister passed away is this: Life is death, like commencement is to graduation. Of course death is an awful and fearsome word, who wants death all the time? but that is the fruit of our sins. remember that for the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus or Lord. So all of us will die! all of us will experience death. The only problem is the pain that death gives us is often unbearable. How can that be possible that there is life even in death, how can the antithetical words could mean the same thing?

We will go back to the verse Paul wrote to the Philippians. As Christians our ultimate goal is to be in heaven, so while we're still here on earth, our goal is to live like Christ. Christ suffered from mountains of persecution, tons of rejection, even his chosen people crucified Him. We will all experience what the Lord had during his stay. persecution, rejection, and even crucified by the problems we face everyday. Still we choose to live, to do what we love to do always, to chase for our dreams. Its us who will choose weather we still go on and continue or to feel dumped all the way because of what happened. Indeed it is tragic and painful but our love ones that departed doesn't want us to see we ended up like that. It's their story that ended, not yours nor mine. So it is safe to say that we should continue the life we live with them. We should make the loss our inspiration. Surely they are smiling seeing us strive for what we dream of, strive to become what we should be.

Life in death, this literally means we are required to continue the life we live when they (departed ones) are still with us and even they are not with us anymore.

Life in death. The day after the burial of my sister my mom told me that morning, that she prayed for a guy's healing. The guy was stroked and his condition was really not that good. She prayed for his healing and even got the guy accept Christ as his lord and savior. I don't know how to feel, if I'll be happy or in grief. Happy because that guy was able to be saved, yet in exchange of the life of my sister. Then again its the Lord's work that I was able to understand and be happy of the outcome. That my sister died but not in vain. That even in her last days here she was used by God enable to save a stranger, for a stranger to be in heaven. In exchange of her life she will be crowned because of what happened.

My sister lived her life not to the fullest because of her condition. Her condition stole the chance to enjoy life and even took her life at her young age. However, like the verse from Paul, she was able to live her life in faith, her fighting spirit was so strong she managed to live for five more years. It was so strong that her body was the one who surrender, She lived her life in Christ Jesus by standing on her faith. By believing that by His stripes we are all healed. She let Christ rule her life even if she is uncertain that she will live long. She was a testament of the verse, her life was lived fully even in just 20 years. She died not in vain but with gain. In exchange of her life is the revival of my dying faith, Thanks to her I was able to recover and was able to be back on track.

To my sister Kimberly, thank you for your life. Thank you for the works you've done, I know that you are happy now with Papa. The two of you will still be in our hearts forever.

-Marki