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Death-Bed Wisdom

By October 3, 2024No Comments4 min read

Often, your emotional state of being can be calmed quickly as you reflect on life backwards. It sounds like this: Imagining myself on my death-bed, looking back to this season of my life, what wisdom would I want to share with myself to draw me closer to God’s love for me? Perhaps it would start with: “Remember that….. OR Don’t forget this truth….”

I saw a movie last night (My All American) based on a true story of a young man who was an incredible football player in college, in fact one of the best. During his junior year of college his leg started to hurt so much so that the coach sent him to get it checked out. Come to find out he had bone cancer, and they had to amputate his leg and he was given a very challenging diagnosis.

As I watched this young man’s cancer journey unfold, I began to have flashbacks of when I was told I had advanced breast cancer in 2006 and faced a double mastectomy, which is an amputation.

I remember one time staring at my image in the mirror after the surgery, bald and breast-less, and having a profound realization: “My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, who anchors my identity in Christ (1st Phase in Emotional Intelligence in Christ), remains untouched by any trauma to my body. Despite the scars and missing body parts and hair, I remain (John 15) whole and complete in Christ. I lack nothing.” 

During that time of treatment, surgeries and setbacks, I was given a gift of freedom like I had never experienced before in my life. I came across a short journal entry today that I wrote during that time called: Death-bed wisdom. I penned this entry after the doctors shared their goal for my “case” which was to get me 5 more years of life. With 3 young children at 38 years old, I gave God more authority than the diagnosis…gratefully my time had not ended on earth and I am still here wearing the “earth suit” which contains my true identity in Christ.

 “Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12

In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month enjoy Death-Bed Wisdom:

“Many times, on earth, God blesses us with wakeup calls that occur when faced with a close encounter with death. Perhaps a terminal illness, a near car crash, surviving a near death experience. 

This call invites you to align yourself daily with what you value most. This call teaches you to love first, then lead. To put people before things, linger in beautiful moments in life that cause you to pause amid your “to do” list. 

This call expands your ability to surrender all to God with the faith and trust that flows from knowing you have been gifted with another day of life and with that comes an urgency of living, loving and being present to the gift of each moment. 

This call gives you the ability to release your need for certain outcomes to know you are enough or that you have already ‘made it’ in life. Attachments, expectations and assumptions no longer drive your ship. Love, positive connection and moments of kindness take over your actions and intentions. The need to own, control, possess, analyze, interpret and conclude are released leaving you with endless opportunities to create to inspire. Jealousy and comparison are no longer on your radar; you rejoice in your own God given gifts and talents and offer that gift to those around you. 

A sense of entitlement is replaced by a profound sense of gratitude for every breath and heartbeat you are graced to experience each day. Love and confidence become your best friends enabling you to ask for what you want, forgive and release, accept what is and change for the better what can be changed. 

This call allows you to accept people where they are at without judgment, including yourself, no longer needing others to see things the way you do or respond and interact with life the way you do, your purpose for living becomes very clear: to grow in the ways of love and kindness on a daily basis, love better today than yesterday, experiencing a confidence in the beautiful creation you are that is so expansive you forget about yourself and therefore reconnect to God and His limitless supply of energy to create beauty and inspiration in the world wherever you are led to go.”

“The only thing that counts is FAITH expressing itself through LOVE.” Galatians 5:6

Take Action: 

Invite the Holy Spirit in to show you what the Lord desires for you to do more of and less of today. Ask yourself: If this was my last day of life today what would I want to do differently? What would I want to let go of?

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