Checkpoint: Death

This morning i had someone ranting to me about something related to death. Then later in the afternoon while taking a walk along the footpath, i saw something that i been seeing many times, but this time it caught my attention more. it was a funeral held under a neighbouring block. i saw it from the back, where its all covered up so i can only see a few tables but not the coffin. so i just had this urge to want to see it, to find out whether it is a christian funeral or not.

i went around the block from a distance. no yellow robed priests making a din, no bg bowl for burning hell notes, ok can be christian. but still not sure. so i had to go close enough until i spotted a very comforting sign -- a small silver cross just below the coffin.

suddenly i felt happy. not because she died, but because i know she is alive and living at some place far better. i may not have known her or even seen her before, but i immediately got this 'connection' with this stranger; as a fellow child of God, fully insured by salvation. i could almost go up to those relatives and say "i am so happy for her, that she has been saved!"

This is a big change that i have seen in myself. its been family tradition to visit the niches of my late uncle and grandfather every easter, i didnt like going to that place at all, but ok i go out of respect. i used to see the columbarium as a very morbid place, a place reeking of death. It was like kranji war memorial with all the names of the dead, made picturesque with the portraits of each. (this was made worse by the poor ventilation inside, which makes the air still and stuffy, adding to the morbid aura.) but this year when i went there, i had a whole new attitude towards the place. when we went to my uncle's niche, i looked around at all those other niches there and i just got this deep sense of peace and tranquility. i could see the peacefulness on their faces in the portraits, and the cross marked on every niche was such a powerful symbolic sight, like to show that these are all people who has been saved. and if the devil would pay a visit to that place, it would just give him a sense of failure. each cross marked upon each person symbolised a victory of life over death, of God over the devil.

I felt so happy for all those saints, and in my heart i was joyfully saying to them, "congrats on your salvation. i am happy for u, that you are now reunited with our Lord; in a place where never again will you suffer, and the rest of your unending days will be filled with joy and contentment". the idea of talking to the dead was very much a taboo to me, but hey... these people are all saints. they are too busy enjoying themself in heaven to bother to listen to what im 'saying' to them, much less pay me a ghostly visit in response to it. but even if a saint were to appear to me, i wouldnt be scared at all, for it is of God.

Salvation is like an aegis of the immortal - after death, you are immediately taken away from all the danger of the battlefield and transported to the fountain of life, where you will always be filled and never die again. (this time its a fountain where enemies cannot reach at all.)

eternal life is such a wonderful assurance. too bad our pets cant have it.... i think