Contributed by Elsie Froment, PhD, Director of Research, Northwest Baptist Seminary.
When Barry Palfreyman, church planter and dean of Canadian Baptist Seminary, received a terminal cancer diagnosis, he began to focus on dying well. He stated this goal so often that I began to wonder: what is a good dying?[1]
When I was a young wife with children, I had tea one day in the home of an elderly church couple. My host started to complain that the church doesn’t do enough for older people. Her tirade caused me to make up my mind that when I was older, I would not rely on others to organize such activities. It seemed to me that near the end of life, as we are able, we should still be contributors.
After high school graduation, I worked in Vancouver for a year to earn money to attend Bible college. In my church, there was an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Knight, who talked with people like me, not yet out of their teens. I felt honoured by their encouragement and still have the calligraphy-lettered promise sign that Mr. Knight gave me, “As thou goest step by step I will open up thy way before thee” (Prov. 4:12 Syriac Version).
My father enjoyed reasonably good health until he got pneumonia at 88 and died within three days. Until he died, he taught the adult class in his church alternatively with a female counterpart and led a weekly service in a local care home. In addition to his love of fixing motors and experimenting with gardening, he provided a model of service to follow.
I once heard of a man who, in the throes of Altzheimer’s disease, sang beautifully every word of “Jesus Loves Me.” This man was still proclaiming the incomprehensible love of Jesus from the deepest reaches of his mind. I found myself touched by this story, wondering if I would do the same. I hope that I would sing Isaac Watts’ great communion hymn, that ends: “Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.”
When he retired, Paul Stevens wrote a book called Aging Matters: finding your calling for the rest of your life.[2] He argued that rather being content with endless cruises and watching television, Christians should assess what they really enjoy and offer that to the Lord for his glory. In other words, they should fill their days with activities that make a Kingdom difference. Stevens does not mean volunteering for missions or some other overtly Christian work, rather that retired people should ascertain their bent and live for Jesus wherever they are, doing whatever fills them with purpose.
Stevens reminds us that we cannot take wealth into our lives hereafter. However, we can take relationships. He suggests that we steward our money wisely and consider where it would do the most good, whether with family or charitable donations. At the same time, we can concentrate on pouring ourselves into other people through prayer and care with the possibility that these relationships will extend through eternity.
Not only would this way of living be joyful and a wise influence, but it would draw the elderly closer to God and increase their anticipation of the heavenly reunion. Dying well, then, can be accomplished in whatever capacity, through active service or holding a church, its people, and its neighbours up to God for spiritual flourishing. It can be a song from the deepest reaches of the mind. It can be a Christian life well lived and a passing to an eternity with God in the “new heaven and new earth,” where the faithful will live as God intended.[3] A good dying.
Notes
[1] If dying is prolonged by serious illness, former pastor and hospice chaplain Michael Duff recommends Deborah Howard, Sunsets: Reflections for Life’s Final Journey (Crossway Books, 2005). Because Howard is a hospice nurse, she describes stages of dying and offers a theology of dying. Her descriptions make her book useful for both Christians and seekers.
[2] R. Paul Stevens, Aging Matters: finding your calling for the rest of your life (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2016).
[3] Revelation 21: 1-4. (NIV)