If I Should Die Before I Wake

I am a family medicine doctor. I work at the Nazarene Hospital in Kudjip, Papua New Guinea. I have been thinking about death lately – not my own so much as the theology of life and death. We live in a developing country where death is far more common than it is in developed countries, and often it comes unexpectedly. When every person has had someone in their family lose a baby, had a young man die in a tribal conflict, and an adult die from – well, no one really knew – it changes the way people see life.

Gail and I have been amazed at how many prayers in churches say something to the effect of: “Thank you God, that no one in our congregation died this week.”  But my favorite is:  “Lord, we slept last night – as if we were dead, and you chose to raise us this morning and give us another day.” 

I think that is really beautiful. Each day is a gift – God chose to give you a new day. More than that, each morning is a resurrection!  He gives us life and breath and everything else.

It is a sound spiritual principal. So why does it seem so foreign to us?  Even visiting doctors who are trained to deal with death often struggle with seeing so much of it here – children dying of preventable disease, patients coming too late for the medicines to work, things we can’t diagnose or can diagnose but can’t treat. The fact is, not only are we surprised by how much death there is, but what really takes us back is our inability to control it. 

I think therein lies the truth of why this theology of death seems foreign to us. As Americans our culture relies so much on technology and modern medicine, on safe roads, good police and regulated safe travel.  We distance ourselves from death, have professionals ready our bodies for our funerals; some don’t even open the casket. Here, people keep the body with them; they touch it and mourn over it – the last time to hold his hand, the last time to stroke her hair. They cry together as a community – for days.

It makes me think of the famous evening prayer for children: “If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” It comes from the 18^th century, a time when death was certainly more common and familiar to the everyday person. I know many variations have been made, often changing that sentence. Are we uncomfortable talking to our kids about death? Do we want to shelter them from what is simply a reality of life – that we don’t know when we are going to die? Rather than a scary proposition, let the fact be freeing. The truth is we are not in control.

I had been thinking of all of this when Allison, our daughter, came to us one night in tears. She had a dream that Gail and I were in a plane wreck and died. It was a scary dream, especially since she knew I was getting ready to fly to Port Moresby for the National Medical Symposium. Of course, she didn’t want me to go. It was a good chance to talk with her about not living our lives in fear. God has called us here for a purpose and as long as he has work for us here, I will do that work without fear. I can’t promise that I won’t die, but simply that if I die, the Lord would still be with her.

So if I should die before I wake (of an illness, a plane crash, or anything else), know this: I have no regrets. I often tell my patients that Jesus promised abundant, eternal life (in Pidgin literally life that is good for all time). This life He offers is not an eternal pie in the sky kept for us later. It starts when we let Christ change our very being – he gives us a peace that no circumstance can change, a love and a joy no disease can diminish, no trial can conquer, and in the end that not even death itself can take away. That is truly good and abundant life! 

The truth is, as believers we have no fear in death, not because we hope to enter eternal life, but that we already are living in it. Death will not change that, it just goes on and on. When I die – today or 50 years from now, I hope I have lived the kind of abundant life that draws others into it as well. Until then, as I have learned from my dear PNG brothers and sisters, I just give thanks for another day that the Lord has raised me from death unto life everlasting. 

-- Scott and Gail Dooley were assigned as medical missionaries to Papua New Guinea in 2003. They have three daughters--Emma, Olivia and Allison.