Not everyone has a tomorrow…

I’ve written previously on this blog about losing my husband back in October 2020. It helped me at the time to write about my feelings, but the first few pieces especially were very raw and I didn’t feel I could share them on here.

The nights are suddenly drawing in and I’ve been thinking about him a lot, and missing him very much. Reading back through my writings, I’ve decided to share the following, written 26 January 2021, in the hope that even one person who reads it, who does not know Jesus, might consider their eternal future and understand that this could be their last day on earth. Not everyone has a tomorrow…

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On the loss of a husband… #8

Yesterday seemed like a pretty good day as it goes. I had a task to do, to take Mum to the optician and then to get some shopping. She came back for a bit of lunch and some company and I took her home around teatime, gave her kitchen a quick clean, sorted some dinner out for her and headed back home. It was exhausting, but I managed to get through it. First time in ages I’ve done so much in one day!

Halfway through my journey home in the darkness, however, I was confronted with an oncoming ambulance, blue lights flashing, siren wailing, looking for gaps in the traffic to speed on towards the hospital. I swung into a convenient bus bay to allow it to overtake and, as is my custom, began to pray for the passenger on board, the staff caring for them and the family.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, came a torrent of wailing and sobbing; waterlogged eyes that made it hard to see the road through the oncoming headlights.

As I tried to gather myself and assess what just happened, I realised I felt compassion for the person in their precarious state, possibly hanging between life and death, for whom that 10 or 20 seconds gained could have made a difference. I felt a wave of emotion towards the paramedics, gratitude for what they do, humility that they do it in often very trying circumstances for all in their care, and concern at the toll that takes on them as human beings. But mostly I think, it was that you never got to ride in the ambulance with blues and twos, rushing to the hospital to be saved, because it was already too late when they arrived. Though they tried their utmost, you were past any hope of resuscitation.

I will never know what happened with that patient; what their emergency was. If they survived or if it was too late for them too. And, if they had a family, how they were coping with the events that suddenly unfolded.

Life is fragile, and sometimes fleeting. We have such a responsibility to live it well. We can’t all be brilliant or famous, but we can all be kind, considerate and generous to others. We can all choose not to be selfish, mean or wasteful. We can all realise that the world doesn’t revolve around us. …And we can all choose where, and with whom, we want to spend eternity… so that if, some day, we are the one whose life hangs in the balance and the scale falls the wrong way, we know where we’re going, and our family knows where we’re going and has peace.

That has been the one thing that has comforted me through this. I know
where you are. I know I’ll see you again. I know your life on earth was cut short, but your joy in eternity is not and you used your life well.

How do people live without Jesus? No hope, no blessèd assurance, no promise that all will be well one day. No one lives forever in this life. For any one of us, this could be our last hour on earth. By all means, write a will, get your affairs in order, pre-plan and pay for your funeral if you must, but PLEASE… believe on the one who can save you, AFTER you’ve shuffled off this mortal coil. The ONLY one who can save you, who himself died for your sin, was buried, and rose again, to keep you for all eternity.