Concerning relatives who die:


My father died in 1982.  My mother died in 2002.  I am an only child.  

I did not choose to look at the dead body of either my father or my mother.  I am fully persuaded it would not benefit the dead for me to look on the dead body, and I felt it would do harm to me to do such.

My mother was still living when my dad died so because of her, and the way she might feel, I did have a funeral for my dad, but with a closed casket.

When my mother died, I felt I was the only one to be considered.  I did notify my two cousins and told  them I would not  have a funeral.  I told them I felt I was the only one to be considered in this matter.  I told them my belief of the resurrection and I think I shared I Thessalonians 4:13-18 with them. 

(One cousin said she could do a memorial service for my mother.  I replied, "That is fine.  Do you want me to keep her body for you?"  I didn't hear from her.)

Before my mother died, God gave me a dream showing me the next time my mother fell she would die. 

I watched over her very carefully knowing this.

Then one night, I was in my bedroom sleeping but I heard a strange noise.  I got up and went to my mother's room.  She was on the floor, fallen.  I called ambulance and took her to hospital.  I knew she would die because of that which God had shown me in the dream.

They did operate on her.  She was 97.  And she lived through the operation. 

While she was in hospital even while she was still living, I went to local funeral home (during a snow storm) and arranged for her burial.  It cost more to do this the way I chose, but I arranged for them to pick up her body upon her death and bury her without my being there.

I took her home, but could not care for her by myself.  I put her in an assisted living home.  She died within a month.  

When they called from the assisted living home, I told them to call the funeral director and have him pick up the body.

I never saw her dead body.

This was simply my choice based on that which I know about those who die.  They are asleep.  They will awaken when Jesus returns.  Until then they know nothing concerning that which the living are doing.  It will benefit the dead person nothing for me to view the dead body and I considered it would harm me, perhaps for the remainder of my life.

I've never regretted this decision and I still believe it is scriptural according to the New Testament.

But the one thing I know for sure, we who are the living cannot focus our attention on the dead as this world does.

For Paul says:

Philippians 3:13-15    Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.  Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: 


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Go forward in Christ

Sarah died at the age of 127 and Abraham buried Sarah, "out of his sight".  Genesis 23:4

Abraham had to go forward in life, not in death.

I Thessalonians 4:13-17  Paul instructs:  But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

(Dead people are simply sleeping.  They will rise with Christ when HE returns!)

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with HIM.  For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent (precede) them which are asleep (dead).

For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

(We will have new bodies then, which are not subject to pain or sorrow or death or decay.  I Corinthians 15)

Most people try to cling to the old life through photographs and going to familiar places where they had been with the person who died.

Abraham made proper arrangement for Sarah and "buried her out of his sight".  He set a pattern.  His new life was now begun and he had more things to which to attend.

When I think of my dead parents or my dead aunt or uncle, I always think of their resurrection with Christ in the return of Jesus when HE gathers the church.  I never think of their dead bodies or their grave.  I always rejoice, for I know they belonged to God.  

In 2019, two people sent me photos of past years:  Me and parents when I was in elementary school.  My high school graduation picture.  My mother in the last year of her life.

I looked at the pictures and felt my flesh rise up a little.  But I want to go forward in Christ as Paul said to do.  I just threw those photos away, setting my mind on going forward.

Lot's wife looked back and she was turned into a pillar of salt.  Genesis 19


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