No fear in death - Midweek Muse

Last Friday Sir Paul Holmes past away after battling cancer. I don’t know if you saw the interview with him on “Sunday” the week before, but I was moved by it. As I watched it I think my heart broke a little.  By the end, I was in tears ... actual running down my face tears. Not because he was dying (which is, without a doubt, sad), but because he was afraid of dying.  During the interview he reflected on the special women in his life, regrets, family, work and God.

When asked if he was afraid he replied:

“Yeah I am, I get a bit scared. The scariest thing is going to bed, closing your eyes and not knowing if your going to wake up in the morning, that’s my scariest thing”

His response to whether he had a sense of peace was:

“Im a bit frightened and I plan to increase my peace with God … I’m worried what’s over the hill… I wonder what there is … I hope the lord decides I’m on the right side of the ledger is all … I will give my life now to some contemplation and pray for Gods mercy”

What struck me most was his fear of death. For a time I felt paralysed to the couch as I considered that sooo many people have this same fear. This uncertainty. This hopelessness.

What I realised was that I have no such fear. I have no doubt that the day my body dies on this earth I will find myself with my Creator, Father, Savior and Friend in a place too glorious to imagine.

Yet Paul Holmes represents one of many, who fear death. This breaks me. Sometimes we pray to God in song: “Break my heart for what breaks yours” yet our hearts are hardened to the fear that others face. We don’t care. We lack compassion and empathy. We are content with our eternity, and our compassion and mercy for others and their eternity dissipates.

As the interview progressed, the line from the song “In Christ Alone” came to mind: “No guilt in life, No fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me.”

 There are people who fear death, there are people living without a glimmer of hope … that should be enough to stir us, to motivate us to action, to move from our state of comfort to a place of compassion and courage. That should cause us to speak up about the incredible hope we have in Christ which is available to all.

 ^“But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.” Titus 3:4-8

Christ came and saved us from death, he conquered it, and when we are in Him death has no hold on us! Our hope is in him and hope is our anchor. It’s a hope worth sharing!

 “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” Heb 10:23

Itsy Bitsy thoughts from SamMe

I wrote a book this week ...

Well, I can tick "Write a book" off my bucket list. Haha, not really! 

One of the things that was really emphasised when Brenton and I did training through Child, Youth and Family while preparing to adopt Evy was the importance of creating a life book.

A life book is a book written for an adopted child with the intention of sharing the child's story with them. It is a honest look at their life from the beginning. Generally it starts with their birth, talks about their birth parents, tells them they are adopted and how that came about. I've read that adopted children can imagine all sorts of ideas about their birth parents from a young age, (for example; their parents died in a car accident, their real mum is a princess in a far away kingdom, their real Dad is coming back one day to look after them) so keeping it open, honest and real with a life book helps the child to understand the reality of their situation.

Because Evy's is an open adoption, she will grow up knowing that she is adopted and she will know and be involved with her birth family. To help her understand her story we wrote a life book for her. We didn't call it a life book as such, instead we've simply said "This is a story all about Evy."



It just arrived a couple of days ago and we plan on giving it to her for her second birthday present. We didn't start with Evy's birth like is often suggested but wanted to start with who she is and what she likes. We move into the deeper stuff a little bit more into the book. It's not too deep but will definately get some conversations happening when she's a bit older.

The biggest thing that we want Evy to know is that she is planned, loved and wanted. We don't ever want her believing she was a mistake, unwanted, abondoned or rejected because nothing could be further from the truth. This is a major emphasis in her story. She was planned by God, to be a part of our family. She is loved by us, and she is loved by her 'tummy mummy'.

I can't wait to read it to her for the first time. I'm sure it will be one of those books we read time and time again, and something that she will treasure for life.

Writing the life book was also a really therapeutic exercise for me. As I wrote her story and thought about how we'd tell her about her adoption, I battled with thoughts reminding me she's not biologically mine. What I came to realise through the book is that she is my daughter in every other way now, and that's what really counts. The process was challenging, satisfying, time consuming but so far really rewarding.

Just some more itsy bitsy thoughts from SamMe :)