April 02, 2012
Choosing Life
This last weekend my mom, who is almost 88 years and in a nursing home,
had a heart problem and was given the opportunity to choose life or death. Her
choice was to have a pacemaker installed or, as the doctor said, “let nature take its course”. Mom has been
an unhappy nursing home resident for over four years, so I find it interesting
that she opted for the pacemaker. Paul says, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I
am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what
shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I
desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but
it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.” (Philippians
1:21-24 NIV) When mom is feeling better I can hardly wait to remind her that
she chose fruitful labor over being with Christ.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I would immediately disagree with the doctor about installing a pacemaker being “nature taking its course” but for beaver dams, birds’ nests, beehives, and termite mounds. It is usually thought that nature will take its course where man does not intervene with his insidious little inventions. So, of course, nature’s course is death. Right? Well, my favorite point over which to heckle the extreme environmentalists and others hobbled by nat-neurosis is the beaver dams and birds’ nests. They would not exist if not for some animal having built them. So it is that they are a part of nature because the builders are a part of nature. Every animal is inescapably part of nature on the basis of its mere being alive. Well, man is a living animal, too. Therefore man also is a part of nature. So, like the termite mounds and beehives are natural, so also man’s roads and houses and airplanes and pacemakers are all natural. And only succumbing to death is as much a course of nature as is the struggle for survival. The pacemaker, then, being made for the survival struggle, is very much nature running its course. God treasures man’s inventions because He made man naturally inventive. Whatever man can possibly invent is as much natural as is the beaver dam.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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