If I had a few unexpected hours of free time in my day, where would I go? To a cemetery.
Here are three reasons why:
Death has meaning. Perhaps it’s because my grandfather has worked as a gravedigger my whole life, but cemeteries have always been, to me, intriguing lands of story and adventure.
And thanks to parents who placed books of martyrs into my young hands, I hold dear many an obituary which gleams of suffering, sorrow, power, and victory. The deaths of saints are gold to me.
And while I often ponder the potential nature of my own death, I can honestly say, “I am not afraid to die,” for there is no death on the other side of my dying. Because of one universe-altering Death, my death will bring only life and an eternity of rejoicing. So a cemetery is a rather happy place for me.
Death is real. Though I am not afraid to die, there is a reality to the darkness of death that brings no rejoicing at all. For while death brings eternal life for me, it brings eternal death for others.
Halloween is my least favorite day of the year, I despise all things spooky or grim, and devilish things are no joke to me. For how can I make light of these things when souls around me are bound for hell?
In the cemetery, my heart surges with urgency for the dying.
And in the cemetery, I fight the devil. I remind him of his place, and I show him death is not the victor. I tell him how, one day, these tombs will open, and bodies will rise, and he’ll lose. {He’s already lost, in fact. So I usually tell him that.}
And while I dream of that joyous, fateful day, I imagine myself as one who rises from the grave. It doesn’t take much imagining really, because the Bible fills in the details. So I simply rest in the hope that is resurrection power. And in a cemetery, that reality is oh so sweet.
Life is short. Just read the names and dates. Infants, teens, servicemen, elderly. For all of them, it was the same: their life was a vapor.
A vapor.
So I spread out a picnic blanket, and I spend some time there in the cemetery. . . pondering, praying, meditating, and saturating myself in the Book that will feed me and ready me. For when I depart that yard of graves, I enter a world of souls. And what fleeting moments I have to go, and fight, and speak, and rescue!
In the cemetery, perspective is gained, and passion grows.
So I spend many a day of leisure there. And every time I leave my special place among the tombs, I breathe a prayer – that my life will forever stand as a monument to grace, that the dash between the dates will make an impact for years to come, and that when my days are through, I’ll joyfully die, knowing that one day, I’ll rise from my grave victorious, and life abundant and free will be mine forever.
[image credit: unsplash.com]
Journey of the Word 