He sat there, staring at the wall, mumbling a lot that was incomprehensible whenever we would pass by. His white hair covered his head, thinning, his hands shaking, and his steps slightly wobbly as he tried to wander here and there.
“Aren’t you gonna’ bring him to Unit 15[special unit where they housed the mentally ill and those with special health needs]?” I asked the deputy who just brought this elderly inmate from the hospital. He appeared tired and wanting to not just take care of him anymore. As two other younger deputies joined him in echoing their frustration on what to do with this guy.
He was not capable of caring for himself. He soiled his pants most of the time and wet it, too. Our prison was not designed to do bedside nursing. So there was no choice but to send him to the county’s hospital where there was a jail ward.
“I don’t understand!” a teeny female voice that came from one of the deputies broke the silence and weariness. “Why don’t you guys just prepare that injection….you know…..” she didn’t finish her statement as no one was saying anything and didn’t expect her to say that.
I stared at her, eye to eye as she was trying to say to give this man a lethal form of injection as he seemed incapable of doing anything anymore. She stopped mid-sentence as she saw me with penetrating stares through her blue eyes. She didn’t feel my agreement with what she just uttered.
But life is precious. Only One gave it, made it, formed it. Wouldn’t it be His right to take it away, too? In His own, perfect time. For us, humans to think that we must have this right to die, knowing how we can’t trust our ways of reasoning, just doesn’t seem right nor fitting.
I saw it in my own father’s suffering. When he was dying and was laying there on his bed for a couple of weeks. The colon cancer invaded his strength, the excruciating pain he must feel that made him beg, day in, day out, for the Maker to take him home. But through it all, people who came to visit him, saw the joy in his eyes, despite the suffering he was in. He made people cried. Not with sorrow. But with tears of joy and happiness as he shared what He knew about the Maker. About His blessings in his life. Neighbors were wondering why my brothers and I were laughing out loud everyday, when my father was dying. It was because my father never stopped telling funny stories. He said “I love you” to each of us, his children in countless times.
I knew then at that point, God used that painful trial my family and I had to go through to bring others to Christ. He used my father’s faith to make people see that He was there, sustaining us all with His strength and peace and joy to overcome this painful transition of my father from life to death. Or was it?
As Christians, we are given this hope of eternal life by our Lord. Death then, is not the end. It’s only the beginning of eternal life. No more pain. No more tears. No more suffering. Only in His presence.
Euthanasia can be a difficult issue. But we all know that death is inevitable. Noone wants to suffer but God does use those sufferings for His purposes.
“When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future.” - Ecclesiastes 7:14
“Not only so , but we also rejoice in sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance…” - Romans 5:3
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