60-Days-of-Second: Follow along as 15 bloggers journey through 4 readings each from the new book, Live Second: 365 Ways to Make Jesus First. Together they will blog through 60-Days-of-Second. Register to follow at www.iamsecond.com/blog. Get the “Live Second” book in stores December 9.

Day 3 by Aaron Conrad

“We too are Adam. We too earn our rightful place in death and make clear our need for grace.” –Live Second, 4.

I recently had a wild hair to write a book. I had a few friends that thought, since I have a blog, I should write the world’s next best seller. For a few days, I even entertained the idea. I downloaded this wicked cool plugin for WordPress that allows you to drag posts into a chapter, form and create an ebook. Within about 48 hours I had a draft completed. It’s still in that format and most likely will always remain that way. If nothing else, it was an opportunity to walk down memory lane of seven years of my life in blog posts.

Except for one alarming thing….

As I re-read my old posts, I noted that in that brief amount of time, I have mourned the death of four close friends and one parent. Five deaths of loved ones in seven years. I’m not sure about you, but I don’t really like that math. Re-reading those posts was like re-living the circumstances which led to their deaths. I was reminded that fire, cancer, accidents, and age robbed me of close friends and one parent. I found myself walking through all five stages of grief as I remembered each one. So many questions….

Why so young?

Why now?

Why can’t we find a cure?

How can you take a father and husband away from a family that needs him?

What will I do without my mom?

I don’t have the answers. To be honest, I’m not sure that anyone this side of heaven does. We were not meant to know death. We were not created to experience death. It is foreign to our understanding. It’s also why we wrestle and struggle with loss. We were created to be in unity with our Creator forever. Yet decisions in the garden by Adam and Even changed it all. Death is now a word that will be etched in our lives. While we don’t understand it, we will all experience it. As they saying goes, “death is undefeated.”

As strange as this may sound, I have had the honor of speaking at the funeral for some of these friends. They are some of the hardest speeches I’ve ever made. Keeping your composure while looking at the faces of those wrestling with understanding is never easy. It’s even more difficult when you’re wrestling with the same questions and don’t have answers. I will say that those speeches are easier when you know where the one that you are honoring placed their trust and life. The words are comforting to say and hear when you know they trusted God and accepted the sacrifice Christ made on their behalf. It makes those moments a celebration, even in the loss. It is much better to wrestle with the question of why this happened rather than the question of where they will spend eternity.

Do you know that peace? Have you accepted that truth? To live second is to understand the price that was paid. We can’t explain why these things happen but we can know a peace that some day the answers will all come. Even to this ruin. Live Second. While your friends and family may mourn the why, they will rejoice in the where.

 

Next for the 60-Days-of-Second:

Day 4- “It’s All About Love” by Aaron Conrad

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