On his deathbed, my spiritual father raised his hands and sang with a groan from underneath his ventilator mask in response to us singing a worship song. What a portal to heaven!
While many in the world consider the topic of death a bit morose, many who have crossed over seem to welcome it in a manner that leaves observers in awe. We speculate as to what they are seeing in their final moments.
Karen Lalor, a beloved former hospice nurse, notes that while each dying person’s experience is different, a common emergence in many is a peace that seems at odds to the experience of the bedside relatives and friends.
The disturbing and sometimes loud gasps during respiratory distress may belie what the dying are going through. While no one knows for sure, Lalor’s experience is that The Lord may have taken the person’s spirit before their body actually died; thus explaining the peace-in-the-pain.
A day before she passed, Lalor’s mother opened her eyes and gave her an “out of this world” smile when Karen whispered to her, “You’re going to be seeing Daddy soon.”
She also remembers a Cerebral Palsy young man with only six months-old cognition who made eye contact with her before he died that she believed was absolutely a “spirit-to-spirit” moment.
In another situation, a elderly dying man was filled with fear. His wife of over fifty years promised him that an angel would come meet him and tell him when it was time. Before he passed, he called his wife into the room and told her that the angel was there. He kissed his wife and died.
Our view of our own death and/or the dying of loved ones may not be accurate. How else can you explain people raising their hands in praise from beneath a ventilator?
And how else can we explain a God who allowed nails to keep his wrists in place in order that he might raise His hands at His time of death?
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PORTAL TO HEAVEN: Many portals go unnoticed unless we beg God to help us see with the eyes of the living, not the dying.
By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff…With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last…'It is finished.'...He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!
Hebrews 11:21 NIV, Mark 15:37 NIV, John 19:30, Mark 12:27