Most of my writing is done in the smallest room in our house. We lightheartedly call it “the library” because there are book shelves in there, but that’s a stretch.
Once in a while, though, I’ve labeled this room something else: our womb-room.
It’s where Nate’s hospital bed was set up during his short-lived struggle with cancer, and we kept it as quiet and safe as possible. He and I retreated there each evening, closing the small French doors behind us, to talk in low tones about important stuff.
As Nate’s need for sleep increased, he spent less time in his living room recliner and more on his bed in this room, drifting into sleep earlier each evening. As he slept, I still sat next to him, aware that each day was bringing us closer to death’s separation.
I often thought about what Nate’s doctor had told me privately: “Birth and death are both messy.” Both also require some hard labor.
A baby’s birth forces him from a dark, warm, safe environment to the bright lights, cold air, and sharp noises outside the womb. And from a baby’s perspective, life after birth isn’t all that safe, starting with his first scrubbing in the hospital nursery.
Dying has its parallels. Nate’s physical death was an exit from a womb, too, our small womb-room, with its peaceful, dimly-lit atmosphere. Just like a baby’s birth requires arduous labor accompanied by pain, Nate’s transition was laborious, too, a regimen of pain caused by disease.
These days the hospital bed is long gone, and as I sit and write in our little womb-room, I often think through the details of what went on here in the fall of 2009. I recall everything Nate went through, thankful to know that what we witnessed wasn’t as much a transition from life to death as a transition from life-with-limits to life-unlimited.
As physical birth brings great joy to a mother and father (and a smile to a baby’s face eventually), being born to eternal life is far more spectacular than that!
It means delivery from suffering of all kinds and a reunion with those we love who have preceded us there. It means the disappearance of any deficiencies and the start-up of abilities we can’t even imagine. And it means the end of all negative emotions, the uptick of all positive ones.
Best of all, though, it means talking and walking with Jesus Christ himself, along with the satisfaction of finally seeing what he looks like. It means watching his facial expressions, listening to his tone of voice, understanding his words, and feeling his touch.
I can’t imagine any labor and delivery with a better end-result than all that.
“If you remain faithful even when facing death, I will give you the crown of life.” (Revelation 2:10)
