Dying "on time"

The priest said this about the 24-year-old soldier who died while serving his/our country…”leaving behind” his young wife and two children: 

“His life was taken from him much too early.”

It’s a painful belief that we breathe in.  Unexamined.  Unquestioned. 

He (she) died too early.

As if any of us can point to someone who died “right on time”…

One of the things death does to us…is it smacks us upsidethehead with the opportunity to question everything.  Or we can remain asleep.  Until the next time.

Who – or what – gives life? 

Who - or what - “takes” life?

Ultimately? 

In the biggest picture?  The picture that is so enormously BIG that we can’t begin to fathom it.  Yet, we try.  And I think we should.

Who – or what – gives and “takes” life?  

Is this true all of the time? 

Or just some of the time?

Who do we become when we believe that the person we love so dearly was “taken from us much too early?”

Who do we become when we believe that?

And when we believe that…who does “our version of God” become?  And how do we feel about a God who allows the people we dearly love to die “much too early?”

And ... who would we be, and how would we feel, and how would we live life ... if we choose to believe that “our” God ONLY allows each of us to die “right on time.”

What if we decided to believe it could be no other way?

Always.

Period.

Death gives us the opportunity to question everything.  Always.