by Margaret Radisich Sleasman

Created on: July 31, 2009   Last Updated: August 02, 2009

Death is a bit of both choice and fate; it is not a one-size-fits-all answer, but more complex than that. First, it is fate because God gives you so many seconds of life on earth, during this time you make choices on how you are going to live. In every breath there is a choice for us to make; unfortunately, most of them are wrong because we just don't allow God to be a part of our choices or part of our lives. Sometimes we let him in when we are in trouble or sick and need His help, but we quickly forget Him within the hour once the trouble has passed.

It is especially hard for parents to accept the "fate" view when a small child dies. God with his vast love, understanding, and grace allowed a child to be still-born or die young of illness or an accident. Parents are left with the guilt of "maybe we could have done something." The answer to that is no, because the baby's life-span - as short as it was - was finished and God took him or her home. This is something that none of us are capable of understanding, but we will once we join them; and so we look forward to that time with great anticipation.

My mom used to tell me that only the good die young. This was because my dad died of pancreatic cancer at age 33 and she loved him more than anything. I tended to believe that until I saw younger people die; that, in my opinion, were not good at all. I like to think that God lets some of us live longer so that eventually we will make the right choices and come to know him. This probably isn't the case either, because some never do make that choice. I go back to the belief that God gives us so many seconds of life to make our choices; whether we make the wrong choices or the right choices, those precious seconds are all we have and how we use them will decide our fate in eternity.

I love Psalm 139, especially verses 16 & 17: "Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! Ps. 139:16-17. So right in those verses it shows that He knew us before we were formed and loved us continually. He loved us so much that He died for all of our sins (choices) even before we were born. Not only that, He allowed each of us to be born knowing that some of us were not going to choose Him, rebel and hate Him and choose to spend an eternity apart from His love.

He loved us enough to give us the chance to choose Him, He loved us enough to pick us up and dust us off after each bad choice we made. He loved us enough to give us opportunity after opportunity to choose Him as our Savior. Some of us made the choice at a young age to follow Him and some waited but still chose Him. Some of us keep rebelling and refusing His love - even to the point we refuse to believe that He exists. What choices have you made in regard to Jesus and when your seconds are up, where will you spend eternity? Please make the right choice while there is still time.

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