What would you do if you knew you had just days to live?
I was raised in a rather nominal Christian home, so faith was not something I took all that seriously. Yeah, earlier on I went to church, but it was not until I was 18 years old that I made a life-changing commitment to Christ. There is however one thing of a religious nature that I recall about when I was quite young.
My parents likely had said it to me, and it was that I should say this prayer each night before I went to sleep:
Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my Soul to keep. If I should die before I ‘wake, I pray the Lord my Soul to take.
The version I prayed had these words tacked on to the end: “Amen. God bless everybody.”
Some of you might remember that children’s prayer. For a while there I did pray it nightly. But then, realising I had not always done so, I started saying it maybe 5 or 10 times a night to make up for those earlier days! Of course when in 1971 I did become a Christian, I learned more about the sorts of prayers I really should be involved in.
But the reality is, we all will die – some before we wake up in the morning. The issue is, are we ready for this? Are we ready to meet our Maker? Are we right with God now? Do we have our priorities right? As to how we might live in the light of eternity and our own mortality, I recently came across the following on the social media:
Before dying at the age of 40 from stomach cancer, the world-renowned designer and author Crisda Rodríguez wrote:
I had the world’s most expensive car in my garage, but now I have to use a wheelchair.
In my house there are all kinds of branded clothes, shoes and price tags, but now my body is wrapped in a small cloth provided by the hospital.
I have a lot of money in the bank. But now I don’t benefit from that amount.
My house used to be like a castle, but now I sleep in two beds in the hospital.
From five-star hotel now spending time in hospital moving from one clinic to another
I’ve signed autographs to hundreds of people but this time the medical records are my signature.
I’ve been to seven barbershops to get my hair done, but now – I don’t have a single hair on my head.
With a private jet, I can fly anywhere, but now I need two assistants to walk to the hospital gate.
Even though there is a lot of food, now my diet is two tablets a day and a few drops of salt water in the evening.
This house, this car, this plane, this furniture, this bank, the excessive fame and glory, none of it works for me. None of this will calm me down. “There is nothing real except death.”
At the end of the day, the most important thing is health.
Please be happy with how little or much you have while you are healthy, have everything, have a plate of food, a place to sleep… YOU ARE NOT LACKING ANYTHING…
Now, as with so much online content nowadays, one cannot be too trusting. If possible, one needs to try to verify what is being said and posted. I had never heard of this person, so I had to do a quick online search to learn more. It turns out that the content of the above meme seems to be basically accurate.
There was indeed a Kyrzayda Rodriguez. Evidently she was a popular Instagram blogger from the Dominican Republic. She died in America on September 9, 2018, aged 40, following a 10-month battle with cancer. One article about her says this:
Rodriguez kept her followers engaged with her meticulous fashion sense even to her last breath. She often wrote about how life with cancer had taught her to appreciate the little things in life. And in August, on one of her posts on Instagram, she openly wrote to her fans that she would be discontinuing her chemotherapy treatment, stating that the treatment was not helping her as she had desired.
“The chemo and radiation will be discontinued because it is not working the way I hoped it would, I have decided to stop these treatments so that I can enjoy the rest of my time with my friends and family and to be as pain-free as possible.” Rodriguez’ post read. The mother of one, who had nearly half-a-million followers on Instagram, in her last post, encouraged her followers telling them that the most important thing in life is love:
“I have a brand new car parked outside that can’t do anything for me, I have all kinds of designer clothes, shoes and bags that can’t do anything for me, I have money in my account that can’t do anything for me, I have a big well-furnished house that can’t do anything for me. Look, I’m lying here in a twin-size hospital bed; I can take a plane any day of the week if I like but that can’t do anything for me … So do not let anyone make u feel bad for the things you don’t have – but the things u have, be happy with those; if you have a roof over your head who cares what kind of furniture is in it… the most important thing in life is LOVE. Lastly, make sure you enjoy the ones you love.” https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/evewoman/trendsetters/article/2001296407/the-last-words-of-kyrzayda-rodriguez-famous-fashion-blogger-who-succumbed-to-cancer
So she did indeed come to recognise toward the end of her life that all the material things in the world do not really mean beans. More tangible and important things like health and love do in fact mean so much more. But let me say a few more things about this.
I still know next to nothing about her. What she said about health and love are of course good things indeed. But the biblical Christian would say much more about these items. First, they would argue that while it would be neat if one could live in perfect health to around 120, if they were not in a right relationship with God through the work of Christ, even that would not mean beans. As Jesus put it, “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world [including a healthy life], yet forfeit their soul? (Mark 8:36).
As I get older, I certainly appreciate good health, as I seem to be having less and less of it as time goes on! But the perfect ideal in this life is not having great health, or great wealth, or any such thing. As Paul said in 1 Timothy 6:6-7: “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.”
And the Christian would say that the biblical idea of love is not what the world usually thinks it is. Biblical love means willing the highest good for the other person. And wanting to see them find new life in Christ is the ultimate way of loving someone else. It is not just sending nice thoughts or feelings. It is not humanistic sentimentality and the like.
What sort of live should we live?
But I must get back to my earlier question: If I knew I was going to die, say, within a week, what would I do? What would I do differently than I am doing now? Perhaps it might be easiest to first answer the question, ‘What would I NOT do?”
Well, I quite likely would not order a dozen new books. I would not go out and buy a new set of clothes. I would not book an overseas river cruise down the Rhine. I would not spend a lot of time washing and waxing my car – even if I planned to sell it or give it to my sons. I would not worry about getting a new mattress for my bed, or a better, faster computer.
There is plenty of stuff I would not do. So what would I do then? It is a good question. Like Rodriguez, my wife died of cancer. One thing she did in her dying days was to write a personal letter to each of our three sons. She had wanted to write letters to others including me – but she ran out of time.
I should be doing the same – I should be writing letters to my boys, and perhaps some other folks. Whether or not I get terminally ill, I still could get hit by a truck tomorrow. So it is best not to put important things off until it is too late. And that would include rebuilding any bridges that need to be done, seeking forgiveness from some others, and so on.
And simply spending as much time in that final week with my family, and with some friends, would be another thing on my bucket list. In addition, perhaps writing a few final articles for my website, urging everyone to not miss out on God’s offer of forgiveness and redemption would be another thing I would aim to do.
As I have already discussed in earlier articles, I might also try to figure out if Culture Watch could somehow continue in the hands of another person, and determining what becomes of my rather large library would also be something to deal with. But hopefully with those two items, I would have gotten round to them well before my last week on earth.
But to be honest, I would have to think and pray further as to what I might do if I knew I had just days to live. And that is something we all should be contemplating – even young people. Being hit by a truck or whatever can just as easily happen to a 7yo as a 70yo.
So keep short accounts my friends – with yourself, with others, and certainly with God. You never know just how soon it will be before you stand before him. And he is not just your Creator but your Judge as well. So live and choose wisely.
Meditating on a passage like Psalm 39:4-7 might be a good place to start with this:
Show me, Lord, my life’s end
and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting my life is.
You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Everyone is but a breath,
even those who seem secure.
Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom;
in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth
without knowing whose it will finally be.
But now, Lord, what do I look for?
My hope is in you.
