Life, sickness, and death

Today we celebrated my daughter Noelle’s 3rd birthday. She’s a lovely little girl, full of sweet and amusing character, even if she seems quiet at times. But when she was born, there were a few complications, one of them being particularly serious, potentially life-threatening. The doctor took me to a side room to explain her condition, and I did not know what he was saying, but I understood perfectly well that whatever her condition was, it was quite serious. Long story short, after a few weeks in NICU, Noelle came home with a very positive outlook. We are thankful to God and all those who prayed for us.

During those times of uncertainty and fear, I knew God was in control. Whether He takes her life or not, whether He brings a life-long disability on her or not, God would do what is right. I knew He was never malicious. He was trustworthy, and He was all-powerful. But the Bible never specifies how long a man’s life would be (or a girl’s, in this case). So I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, and there were moments when I was more afraid than I wished to be.

But there was something I didn’t doubt. Actually there were several things I could say that I didn’t doubt. But one thing I want to say here is that I never doubted that the doctors and nurses would do anything intentionally to harm our little girl. They may be a little incompetent (some did seem incompetent to my untrained eyes), or careless (we are all human after all and make mistakes). But I never doubted that they would do everything they could to make our girl better. I fully assumed and trusted that their sole intention for my little girl was that she would survive by whatever medical actions they took. Some tests, like Lumbar Puncture, looked scarier and more dangerous than others, and the medical staff sometimes looked tired or uncaring (at least from the point of view of this hyper-sensitised dad with his daughter in NICU, his wife in a post-labour recovery room, and a toddler to take care of!). But it never crossed my mind that they would ever intend to do something to harm or even kill her. I don’t think I was wrong to assume that and trust the medical staff. And thankfully, all their hard work was not in vain. As I mentioned, our little Noelle got better, and she is now a sweet 3 year-old girl.

And then this podcast. I listened to it just now.
Here are some keywords. Bio ethics. Medical ethics. Euthanasia. “Right” to die. Hippocratic Oath. Assisted suicide. Organ harvest. Death culture.

Whether you are familiar with these terms or not, I strongly recommend you listen to the podcast. I felt sick in the stomach, disgusted at the state of the culture we are in and where the so-called ethicists are trying to take us. I cannot do justice to the content by summarising it. But here’s the thing. If the majority of bio-ethicists would continue to have their way, what I described above about my daughter would have looked very different. I would not only be worried about my baby daughter’s well-being, but I would be forced to weigh her life’s worth and her chance of survival and calculate it against some number, probably in monetary value. It would be naïve to assume the intention of the medical staff, because they would have done their own calculations, and they may as well make a very different conclusion from my own about the worth of my daughter. What’s more, if my daughter or any of my children ever become disabled or have a mental disorder, I will no longer be able to trust the medical staff, not because they lack knowledge or skills, but because they may have a different intention towards my disabled child. And it’s not just the medical staff, of course. It’s the whole society, people you meet on the streets, people you share your struggles with, people to whom you tell about your daughter’s sickness. If the majority of bio-ethicists would have their way for few more decades, I don’t think it’s a far stretch to imagine a situation where you share with someone about your depressed teenage daughter, whom you love and care for and are worried about, and get a response, 'Have you thought about taking her to an assisted-suicide clinic?’ Too far? Too disgusting? I’m glad you feel that way. I do, too. But know that not everyone feels this way. If you doubt this, again, listen to the podcast. And I invite you to pray to God to act in mercy, to give us wisdom and courage to do something about this.

Certainty of Death

When I believed cancer was a death sentence I was wrong ­— not because I’m not going to die, but because in fact I’d always lived under the shadow of death. The one thing we know for sure is that we’re going to die.
  – p33, Hope Beyond Cure by David McDonald

A path that Jesus once took

Jumpy dots and numbers in red,

Shallow breaths and tubes with med.

Are we destined to this?

Unconscious, so far as we can tell.
Not in too much pain, doctors compel.

How sure are you?

It is only natural, someone had told me.
Maybe it was from that stupid movie.

Am I supposed to believe it?

Too scared even to touch his sleeve
Lest my hand be his last heave.

Go on, tell me I'm being irrational!

Then,
Slowing the pace.
And no more.

What am I supposed to think?

He's gone, God took Him.
He's with Jesus, all the better.

What am I supposed to feel?

Rage. Disgust.
Full. Empty.

What am I supposed to do?

Wait.
Yes, wait for the Day.
Wait.


  -- For my father-in-law  (1948 - 2015) --

My grandmother and her gracious God

Just a couple of days ago, my grandmother passed away. She lived to a ripe old age, but her life was not without significant amount of suffering.

When she was pregnant with my mum and her twin sister, communists took her husband away, and she never saw him again. She became a refugee during the Korean War and travelled, on foot and by train, with her five children, from the North to Busan, the southern-most city of South-Korea’s mainland. She meticulously hid all her money while she travelled to keep it safe from thieves, only to lose it all to a con man.

Busan was over-crowded with refugees and she could not find any accommodation. After taking shelter under a bridge for few nights, with nothing to eat, she pondered whether to simply kill all her children and commit a suicide herself. Eventually, someone told her to go and ask for a shelter at a church. The church was already filled with refugees beyond its capacity, but the gate-keeper took pity on her and her tiny new-born twins, and took them inside.

She made living by buying some clothes from the US military, dyeing them to make them look different, then selling them at a civilian market. It wasn’t entirely legal, but the times were hard for everyone and she got by for a while.

Eventually, and quite extraordinarily, all of her 5 children survived, grew up and received good education. My grandmother herself was never taught how to read and write, but she learned to do so, partly because she had to for business, but also because she wanted to read her bible. Her hand-writing always looked like that of a second grade kid, but she read her bible with ease and clarity.

Her children all got married, and in time, she was blessed with 8 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren. She was never able to visit her homeland, somewhere in the mid-western part of North-Korea.

She was reasonably healthy for her age, especially when you consider the kind of abuse her body had to endure when she was younger. However, in recent years, with the onset of dementia, she deteriorated rapidly in terms of health as well as mental capacity. The near-loss of her moral judgment was particularly saddening, but her bible, and I believe, her Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ was never too far from her.

On the 16^th of July, 2014, my grandmother was finally released from her suffering. By the grace of God, my grandmother was saved from her sins and this decaying world, and she will resurrect one day in new heaven and earth, with the new glorious body, forever to praise God’s mercy. By the grace and wisdom of God, I came to exist through her family, and was taught the glorious gospel from my youth, and look forward to standing along side my grandmother and joining in everlasting songs of praise to our gracious God who is mighty to save.

"[God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." (Revelation 21:4 ESV)

In 2012, with her then youngest great-grandchild, John.

History: the record of a broken world

  Meanwhile I continue to reflect on what it means to be plunged into history. God made everything good. But in that good creation, soon or late each of us, one after another, gets discovered by Garrison Johns and finds that not everyone thinks that our place in this creation life is so wonderful. We are plunged into pain and disappointment and suffering. Sometimes it recedes for a while; other times it threatens to overwhelm us.
  The final verdict on all of this is death. We die. Strangely, virtually every death, even of the very old, feels like an intrusion and more or less surprises us. Tears and lament give witness to our basic sense that this is wrong and that we don't like it one bit. Death provides the fundamental datum that something isn't working the way it was intended, accompanied by the feeling that we have every right to expect something other and better.

-- p.137 from Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson

* Peterson introduces Garrison Johns earlier in the book as a school bully who made Peterson's life miserable for months until one day Peterson fought back and ended up beating him up. The story seems to tell that it was through Garrison Johns that Peterson first learned the world was not as it's meant to be, and that this broken world was not simply external to Peterson but also in him too.

The pattern for Christian living

[...] there's always something that has to be left behind if you're going to embrace God's vocation for you. One rather portentous but nonetheless very profound way of expressing this is to say the Christian life according to the New Testament is to be lived according to the baptismal pattern, which means that experiences of renunciation even to death (or what feels like death) constantly precede experiences of resurrection in which you're made rich again. But the resurrection doesn't come until after the death. And it's round the circle of that pattern for each of us over and over again: death followed by resurrection is the recurring sequence. This is part of the Lord's discipline for our personal living, just as it's part of the pattern of the Lord's work in the church and in the world.
- p.170, Never Beyond Hope by J. I. Packer and Carolyn Nystrom

I just finished reading this book, Never Beyond Hope. I didn't do the study guides, though. It's probably worth going through this book again sometime in the future, perhaps with some other people. Then, I may do the study guide at the end of each chapter.

You can get this book at Koorong or from Amazon.

Euthansia, death, life, and the author of life

While some secular thinkers debate the moral and ethical legitimacy of euthanasia in favour of legalisation of euthanasia, forcing the biblically faithful thinkers to defend life and challenge secular man-centred thoughts, a man who was thought to be dead beyond revival comes back alive just before his organs were about to be removed for donation. He is now talking and walking.

Science continues to do its best, namely, proving to ourselves how little we really know about things that we (or at least some) think we've nailed down. In the meantime, God has spoken on these matters clearly, and His Spirit continues to convict people as to recognise Jesus as the author of life, and God as the only one who has the authority over life and death at His pleasure and good and gracious will.

Bits and pieces - 19-Mar-2008

• Jesus as a failed leader - reconsidering our urge to make Jesus as a model for leadership.
• Arthur C. Clarke died today
• A.viary - If you are into design, especially web-related, you should check this out. An online design tools on offer. But even for just a look at their website sure will inspire you.

For Christians, there's more that just the "heaven", there is the Resurrection!

Be sure to read this short post at The Gospel Driven Life.

Jesus did not die and rise again so when we die we go to a better place. He died and rose again so that death will be swallowed up, this mortal shall be clothed in immortality, and our parents (and all who fall asleep in Christ) will be re-embodied.

A new secular consideration on death

Found an interesting opinion on death.

[Professor Kellehear] said: "Forty years ago, being dead used to be very simple - it was the point at which your heart stopped beating. Now death itself has been complicated by the fact that we can keep alive people who are brain dead almost indefinitely. Brain death is the point at which doctors can switch off machines or begin harvesting organs, but, to relatives, being brain dead is not the same as being a corpse. Corpses are not warm, they are not pink, they do not move, they are not pregnant - but a person who is brain dead can be all of these things. ... I would argue that these should be social decisions. To better inform these decisions, we need a closer look at the social implications of brain death."

While this is discussion would be lead by secular ideas and understanding of death and human nature, hopefully it would help our society to be more biblically shaped by re-examining not only what "death" is, but the way some of the most fundamental issues have been handled in recent years. Am I being too naively optimistic about secular discussion? Maybe.