Spending time with cancer victims has led me to this conclusion: the easiest way for me to die is the hardest for my family, and the hardest way for me to die is the easiest for my family.
When someone is battling cancer they usually suffer and if the illness is terminal by the time they are ready to die their family is usually ready to let them go. Their loved ones don't want to see them suffer any longer. On the other hand, if you get hit by a bus and die instantly, assuming you are going to heaven, that's a great way to go. No hospital. No suffering. Maybe an instant of pain and bang! You're standing over your dead body wondering what just happened. And then you see the angel who's come to fetch you to your real home and suddenly everything becomes clear. That's easy for you, but it comes as a terrible shock to the people who love you.
The point that I want to make is that if you mind is right, there really isn't that much difference between dying in a protracted struggle with cancer and getting hit with a bus. In either case, your suffering is finally over.
Sometimes we are suffering and we don't even know it. The only time in our lives when we were treated right was when we were babies. All we had to do was show up and we were a big deal. Everyone loved us. Everyone was kind to us.
Then we got a little older and all of a sudden we weren't so special any more. We weren't a big deal. Adults were no as excited to see us. Then we began to interact with other little kids and we found out what life was really life. We got insulted. Some of the cruelest things that were ever said to us were said to us by other children. In some cases we got beat up.
Something inside of us began to tense up. We couldn't truly relax around other people. We had to keep up our defenses. We never really loose that fear of being mocked and ridiculed. Some of us won't go back to a high school reunion because we don't want to relieve the memories of the way we were treated and the things that were said to us.
And then you die, and if you are a Christian, you go back to being the way you were when you were a baby. You are taken to this perfect place where everyone treats you like a VIP. Everyone loves you. No one will ever ridicule you or be mean to you ever again. Complete strangers will love you just as much ore more than your mother loved you. Everyone will be unfailingly kind to you. And that part of your heart that is all tensed up, that has been tensed up since you were a little kid, will finally be able to relax and interacting with others will be a continuous joy to you. Once you've spent some time in heaven an experienced the perfection of true, brotherly love, you wouldn't be willing to come back here for anything.
As delightful as your interaction with other humans will be, it will pale in comparison to the delight you will find as you spend time in the presence of God. The Spirit of God will flow unhindered through your being like a spring breeze. You will experience infinite love, perfect peace, and the fullness of joy. You will look back at the happy times on earth and realize that the best thing about them was the absence of pain. Your soul will, for the first time, be fully satisfied.
You will look back on your earthly life and say, "I was always thirsty inside. Sometimes I was less thirsty than at other times; I called those less thirsty times happiness. But I was never really happy. The very best that earthly life has to offer now has no appeal to me. In the presence of God is the fullness of joy. I would never want to go back to the emptiness and thirst of my earthly life."
So you're in the prime of life; you've got your health, a good job, and a good family; and all of a sudden you get hit by a bus. And everyone says, "It's so sad. He had so much to live for."
But people who really understand life would say the same thing about that man that they would say about a man dying after a long struggle with cancer. They would say, "Well, at least his sufferings are finally over."
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