It’s one I’m never quite sure how to answer. And perhaps you have felt similarly uncertain how to respond, when you have come across it yourself, in the course of completing a job application perhaps, or when seeking to take out health insurance.
The question I’m referring to goes something like this: ‘Would you currently consider yourself to be fit and well?’ And the reason I hesitate before responding is that, whilst I do generally feel well, it’s been a long time since I could honestly say I was fit.
Looking back over my life, I am grateful that I have enjoyed good health. It is now eleven years since I last had an episode of illness that left me unable to work and that particular bout was the first time in my career that I’d ever taken a day off because I was unwell.
That said, that particularly spell of sickness was a significant one, landing me in hospital for seven weeks with a midline in place and the need for four hourly infusions of antibiotics such that I would have struggled to carry out the duties of a doctor. At least, that is, for my own patients, though, had I been motivated to do so, I suppose I might have been of some use in the care of those of my ward based colleagues.
That time of relative incapacity was an interesting one, not least because, in the early days of being bedridden, when a diagnosis had not yet been made, I genuinely thought I might die and I remember experiencing, if not a dark night of the soul, periods of dimly lit sleeplessness when I pondered questions like, ‘Is this illness God’s way of punishing me for something I have done wrong?’, and, ‘If I do die, will I go to heaven?’
These are questions to which, as a Christian, I believed I knew the answers, but I nonetheless found that I needed to be reassured of them. And so, I reminded myself how Jesus bore on the cross the punishment for all of my many sins and that, as a result of his dying in my place, it was simply impossible that God was now punishing me for those things that had already been atoned for.
And that I would indeed go to heaven if I died, not because of any merit of my own but because, having already been forgiven for all my wrongdoing, I had also been credited with Christ’s own righteousness thereby making me wholly acceptable in God’s eyes.
But why am I telling you all this now?
Well, it’s not, I hope you will be relieved to hear, because I have recently received a terminal diagnosis, and this is now my clumsy and characteristically prolonged way of letting you all know! Rather, it is, perhaps, because this week marks the anniversary of that time when I was laid low with bacterial endocarditis, that I have been considering my inevitable mortality again.
But this is not me being morbid or melancholic.
Rather it is simply me recognising that, at 58 years of age, I have now missed my opportunity to have a midlife crises and, with my healthiest years behind me, if the grim reaper does not seek make my acquaintance beforehand, I can now look forward to the inevitable physical decline that will accompany my headlong rush into my impending senility.
Today though, I find myself not so averse to the idea of dying as I was eleven years ago. Whilst the process may be one that is painful, and though I still enjoy the life I have, death now seems a less unpleasant path to take than it did back then. Perhaps there will be those who might say that this just a consequence of how the world now is, and that my acceptance of an early exit, should that be my future, is no more than a desire to lazily cop out of all the cruelty, bitterness and unkindness that is now so prevalent.
But that is simply not the case. Because, whilst there are a number of reasons why I would not wish to accelerate the day of my death – reasons that include that life is far too precious a gift for that, I like to think there is still useful work for me to do, and the fact that I don’t believe it’s for me to chose the moment of my demise – the reason for me not being afraid of dying is far more positive than that.
Two bishops were talking one day. One told the other that he’d just been told he had cancer. And by way of a reply, was congratulated for his good fortune!
Now it’s no doubt an apocryphal story, but it makes the point that, notwithstanding the suffering that might follow such a diagnosis, for Christians at least, death is not the end but is, in fact, just the beginning, the gateway into a better, more fulfilling existence in the presence of God. As such it need not be feared in the way that, generally at least, it is by those who do not share the believers sure and certain hope of the resurrection.
That is why the apostle Paul could write that for him, ‘to live is Christ, and to die is gain’, that, whilst he was pleased to serve God for as long as there was fruitful work for him to do, his desire was to depart and be with Jesus, because that, for him, was ‘better by far’ [Philippians 1:21-23].
This week I have spent time with two men who I believe would say the same thing as Paul wrote to those first century believers in Philippi, two seasoned saints from overseas who have lived the Christian life, not only longer than I have, but with far greater authenticity as well. As has been the case with so many others of my brothers and sisters in Christ that I have had the joy of meeting since starting working with SGA, the sincerity of their faith oozes out of them such that it is an encouragement to simply spend time with them.
It has not only been a great privilege to partner with them in the gospel, but a wonderful blessing too, one that has served to strengthen my own faith by confirming, as it has, that what I already know to be true from God’s word, is born out in the life of those who live according to it.
Which is that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ who came into the world to save sinners, is the gospel that is the power of God for salvation to all who believe, and the gospel that can save even the likes of me.
All of which means that, just as the healthy can, at the same time be terribly unfit, so too can the unhealthiest, even those who are dying, be simultaneously fit for heaven.
Which is already wonderfully good news for all of us – and will be all the more so as we each inevitably draw nearer to death ourselves.
Related posts:
To read ‘On death – my first and last’, click here
To read ‘On my near Death Experience’, click here
To read ‘Three Times a Patient’, which includes a little more detail on two of my three near death experiences, click here
To read ‘Professor Ian Aird – a time to die’, click here
To read ‘On Finishing Well’, click here
To read ‘A Time to Mourn – Reflections on a funeral’, click here
To read a review of Dr Lucy Pollock’s first book. ‘The Book About Getting Older’ click here,
To read a review of Dr Lucy Pollock’s second book, ‘The Golden Rule’, click here
To read ‘On approaching one’s sell by date’, click here
To read ‘Bleak Practice’, a fictionalised version of ‘On approaching one’s sell by date’, click here
To read ‘At Halloween – O death where is thy sting’, click here
To read ‘On not being afraid at Halloween’, click here
To read ‘Monsters’, click here
To read ‘Assisted Dying – we all need to be happier to help’, click here
To read ‘Assisted dying in the light of the cross’, click here
To read ‘Health – it’ll be the death of us. Institutional arrogance in the Health Service’ click here
To read ‘What becomes of the broken hearted? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Palm Sunday’, click here
To read ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Good Friday’, click here
To read ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? Rejoicing, though temporarily sorrowful, on Easter Day’, click here.
To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here
To read ‘All’s Well That End’s Well’, click here
To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here
To read “Luther and the global pandemic – on becoming a theologian of the cross”, click here
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.
To read ‘Looking back to move confidently forward’, click here
To read ‘The Resurrection – is it just rhubarb?’, click here
To read ‘Faith and Doubt’, click here
Some musings 