Sometimes we open our book of life and some of its pages are blank and we put words of opportunities, courage, faith and confidence on them ourselves to inspire us.  When we scan the pages, we cherish the wonderful memories and we also remember and honor our loved ones who have gone before us; we become aware of our own mortality which could lead us to wake up and live an authentic and meaningful life.

A useless life is an early death. To live defeated and dishonored is to die every day.

Many of the lessons we learn when we think of our mortality could only be derived through the things we experience and sometimes suffer. God expects and trusts us to face temporary mortal adversity, so we could learn what we need to learn and ultimately become what we are to become in eternity.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven do not want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is, as it should be, because death is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. Dying is nothing to fear. It can be the most wonderful experience of our life depending on how we have lived. What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; however, what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal. Death is not the greatest loss in life; it is what dies inside us while we live.

I have learned that death is simply a shedding of the physical body like the butterfly shedding its cocoon. It is a transition to a higher state of consciousness where we continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, and to be able to grow. For those who seek to understand it, death is a highly creative force. The highest spiritual values of life can originate from the thought and study of death.

It's only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, that we will then begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it were the only one we had.

I have also learned that there is no joy without hardship. If not for death, would we appreciate life? If not for hate, would we know that our ultimate goal is love? We can either hold on to negativity, look for someone or something to blame, or we can choose to heal and keep on loving. Those who learned to know death, rather than to fear and fight it, could become our teachers about life.

By Tim Pedrosa

 

The Lord is well aware of our mortality. He knows our weaknesses. He understands the challenges of our everyday lives. He has great empathy for the temptations of earthly appetites and passions. - Joseph B. Wirthlin

Tim