Choose Life

Deuteronomy 30:19-20: “This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life…”

Last Monday in the English composition class I teach, we discussed assisted suicide and euthanasia. Then I saw a tv program about the same topics where an organization was criminally indicted for helping people end their lives. Sadly, they won the case. I can’t comprehend why people in our nation can define hate speech yet they have trouble determining whether someone helped a person commit suicide. And even worse, people won’t weigh in and say such actions are evil.

They point to palliative care and claim it is the same measure. I assure you, it is not. You see, I helped my mother die too. But let me tell you how. I sat on her bed and sang hymns to her. I held a straw to her mouth so she could sip water and juice. I spoon-fed her rainbow sherbet when she could barely swallow.  I held her hand as I listened to her and laughed with her and cried with her. I did not in any way try to help her “exit” this world according to her schedule. Thanks be to God, she would’ve never wanted that.  We  understood God alone is sovereign and He alone gets to determine the length of our days.  Lest you think what about those who kill themselves? There are hundreds of stories where a person turns from suicide at the last minute. With these evil people who “help” them, they have no choice but to die.

God gives us a choice daily and He tells us which choice to make. The Life-Giver will always tell us to choose life. It is the enemy who has come to steal, kill and destroy. There is only one time in history where God condoned choosing death: when His Son who knew no sin willingly laid His life down so that we might have eternal life with Him. My prayer is that people who are so desperate to die, will turn instead to the only One who can truly give them life.