Here in the America, we celebrate birth with plenty of pictures, family, video, and the like recording for posterity this beautiful and heartfelt event. Tears that are shed at childbirth come from the mothers' noble effort and grace, along with the tears of joy for the newborn baby, and of course, the baby itself cries upon entering this brave new world. Childbirth is one of those seminal moments which are rightly celebrated in this country as a day of love, joy, and appreciation. Death, on the other hand, is often treated with regret, fear, and reluctance.
You might believe that birth and death are polar opposites, but they are more akin to ying and yang and the cycle of life. For instance, when you are within your mother's womb, this is the only world that you have ever known, your mother's womb provides everything that you could ever wish for and you are perfectly safe, yet when you are compelled down the birth canal, life as you have always known it inside your mother's womb is now over, it is therefore dead to you, and you are now born into a bright new world, naked and exposed.
Death, on the other hand, is the cessation of life as you know it in this material world, your physical body has met its end, but your soul, the real you is now freed from the confines and limitations of its physical casing. Your soul yet lives but your body is no more! Death should not be seen as an unmitigated horror but instead should be viewed as a time of transition from the material plane back to the spiritual plane from which we were created. In Jeremiah 1:5 we read that: "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee…" This passage confirms that our existence predates this material world and that therefore our true self is our soul which is our essence and consequently that our soul is beyond time and space.
Therefore death should not be looked upon as something to fear, or as the great unknown, or as a deep and dark void, or the ending of all life, but rather as a new beginning in our spiritual quest to find our way back to the First Source, which is God. The regrets of material death are often of a life not examined, of goals not achieved, of mistakes made and not rectified, and for some, a death that is unexpected and comes far too soon. Too many of us live as if the bell will never toll for us, but in fact, it tolls for all of us. Our physical body cannot last for eternity, that is not its nature, therefore it behooves us to recognize this earlier as compared to later for we read in Matthew 6:21 that: ”For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." You cannot take your physical body or your earthly treasures into Heaven, but you will take your soul and its growth and knowledge into the spiritual realm for its re-birth. Ultimately, what you leave here on earth is your legacy that you have pass onto others.
Birth and death, ever together, never to part, you cannot have one without the other.