LifeTrac with Chuck Swindoll is a presentation of Insight for Living Canada.
Death comes usually without warning. And death comes like a grim reaper, when you view death
from a human viewpoint. Death does not care about reputation or person or age, color, race, country,
or background. When death invades, we submit. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross has written a book from
the viewpoint of a medical doctor, which she is. She’s entitled the book, On Death and Dying.
Her book is the result of interviewing some 200 terminally ill patients.
She talks to them directly and forthrightly about life as they view it from the viewpoint
of the hearse yet ahead of them. Dr. Kubler-Ross has presented in her book five steps or stages
that people pass through after knowing that they are to die, and finally death itself.
Quickly, these are the five. First, there is denial. The average individual, upon hearing
that his life will be terminated earlier than he expected, denies it. His question is,
“Not me, Lord. Is it true?” The person who hears that he will die imminently denies it.
There is the record of a 16-year-old girl who was driving a car full of teenagers home from
a football game and that car smashed head-on into a concrete culvert. The 16-year-old girl
was the driver and she was the lone survivor. She testifies in the grim record that the common words
that she heard from those that were dying around her were all the same--“Oh, God, no, not me!”
Our initial response is, “Not me.” But when that no longer will hold water,
the second response of man is anger, “Why me?” Dr. Kubler-Ross describes the anger in various tones.
It comes across sometime[s] in harsh bitterness. In other times in total isolation,
where a person will slide away from reality and out of anger simply isolate himself and
pass up food for several days, even to the fact of harming their own health.
This turns, thirdly, to bargaining. A person often says, as a result of facing his anger and then
accepting the fact that death is coming, “Look, God, uh, since I’m going to die, could You give me
until such-and-such a date, that I might see my grandchild or that I might experience this trip
or that I might come to realize the joy of a few months of retirement?” and on and on. “If I will
face death realistically, will You do this for me?” And the bargaining process gets underway.
This leads, fourthly, to depression, where a person slumps into a time of deep darkness
emotionally. This not only is experienced by those who are in the process of dying, but those who
sit alongside loved ones that are dying. And finally, fifth, there is acceptance.
Psychologists tell us that it is virtually impossible for anyone attending a funeral to ever
envision themselves in that coffin. Now I think many of us spend our time in more ways than that,
but that is a flashing thought at times. What will I do when death occurs?
Death is usually the last thing we want to talk about.
It makes us feel uncomfortable . . . awkward . . . and we shudder when someone brings the subject up.
But for the Christian . . . when death occurs . . . God has a better plan and a better purpose.
This is Steve Johnson of Insight for Living Canada.
Listen to more of Chuck Swindoll’s LifeTrac messages at lifetrac dot C A.
LifeTrac. Where Life and Truth Meet The preceding LifeTrac presentation
was brought to you by Insight for Living Canada. The original message "Back from
Beyond" was copyrighted in 1975 and this LifeTrac sound recording was copyrighted in 2014
by Charles R. Swindoll Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide