Video from the Video Lounge
"A team of Macmillan palliative care nurses from Royal Stoke University Hospital discuss this."
What People Say as They Approach Death
Someday God willing you will be nearing home, on your deathbed and approaching Christ. You will be absent from the body and face to face with The Lord. Theses nurses give some first hand accounts of what people say as the approach death. As having worked as a nurses I have been in the same situation many times. It is sobering and profound. We should all contemplate our death daily as we never know what tomorrow will bring.
The Rev. Billy Graham wrote a book in the twilight of his life called: Nearing Home; Life, Faith and Finishing Well.
Read the book if can, in it Billy Graham focuses on evangelism, pleading with non-Christian readers numerous times to come to Jesus before it is too late. But most of the book is filled with observations on growing old, or preparing younger readers for the reality of old age. “All my life I was taught how to die as a Christian, but no one ever taught me how I ought to live in the years before I die,” he writes in the introduction. “I wish they had because I am an old man now and believe me, it’s not easy.”
Graham advises readers to prepare a will/medical directives to reduce family stress and conflict after you’re gone. And look out for the “hidden perils” of depression, anger and self-absorption. “Are you willing to be used by God regardless of being bound by physical ailments, financial constraint, or the loneliness of growing old?”
He counsels all of us on a range of possibilities: getting involved in church or other ministries, helping others who may be ill or grieving, and building a mature faith through books and Bible study.
“God forbid that we should ever retire from prayer, the sweetest work of the soul,”.
Graham still manages to find humor in the gradual loss of senses/abilities that accompanies old age.
“I often wonder if God, in his sovereignty, allows the eyesight of the aged to cast a dim view of the here and now so that we may focus our spiritual eyes on the ever after,” he writes.
So as we near home let us not get discouraged or give up but focus on Christ and how we can glorify him in all of life, even unto death!