Sting

I write this blog tonight next to two cell phones – one is mine, and one belongs to the hospital I work for. I am the social worker on-call tonight. You might be wondering what we could get called in for late at night, or you may have guessed it already… death. As a hospital social worker I work with death a lot. Most of the time it is the “death” of something that patient had prior to walking through the doors of the emergency room. It could be the death of an arm or leg. It could be the death of the ability to walk or think like before. We try our best to help people cope with this. And then there is the other “death”… the real kind. Where we don’t get to work with the actual patient, but with the family and friends. To see those faces and to hear those cries, is a sting that cannot be defined.

This weekend I went to a funeral of a young woman who lost her life to cancer, and at the same time was feeling heartbroken for a friend who had lost her father too soon and too tragically. When I hear of deaths that hit close to home, I easily have that PTSD kind of flashback to the faces and the cries that I have seen in the emergency room, ICU’s and OR’s so many times. And all I can think of is how badly it stings.

So I started thinking of that song… what is that song… google will help – ah, yes, Chris Tomlin (should’ve known).

“Sin has lost its power

Death has lost its sting

From the grave You’ve risen

Victoriously”

I remember how I used to sing this with such confidence. Confidence that death had actually lost its sting, or that maybe we weren’t supposed to feel a sting. After all, I am supposed to be “running into marvelous light,” for I could not be in a state of despair over death!

This did not sit well in my bones this weekend. Easily I just went to the source – 1 Corinthians 15, towards the end of the chapter. Reading these words tonight could not have been more enlightening.

“I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immorality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true:

‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.

Where, O death is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?’”

Maybe a better lyric for the Tomlin song would be:

“Sin has lost its power, Death will lose its sting.”

Scripture is clear, for we do not live in a world where death doesn’t sting. That day is coming, but it is not here yet. Discovering this truth tonight has strangely given me some comfort. Comfort in the fact that until the Lord comes again, I am allowed to feel death’s sting fully. I am allowed to be fearful of losing someone I love because I can anticipate the sting being so painful. And when the sting does come, I don’t have to consider myself “weak in my faith” for allowing the sting to enter my heart and soul.

Death is inevitable, and for some reason God has called me to be a helper of those getting stung by it. So I will continue on and try my best to create space for mourning, but never forgetting (or preaching) the victory that is to come.