Recently in Death Category

In this series of posts on talking to your children about the death of one close to them, there is one aspect that was not specifically covered :  how should the death of an unbeliever be discussed? This is an important consideration. Dan posted the following comment on a previous post:

This post is very timely! My kids just lost their grandfather last week. I do not believe that he knew Christ. Any advice on dealing with this would be helpful and appreciated.

This is the third and last post in this series on what to say to your children when someone close to them dies. The topic of death is challenging. But as Christians, we should not fear talking about it. Jesus Christ has won the victory over death. Our children must see that we have the faith and courage to actually live out this reality. This is the test of whether we live by faith or by sight. Our children know the difference. In order to comfort our children we must experience comfort ourselves. This is Paul's message in his second letter to the Corinthians.

In the last post we began discussing how to talk about death with your children. In that post we laid the foundation for thinking biblically about death and dying. Our culture attempts to avoid the reality of death by emphasizing the illusion of life without Christ. In 1 Timothy 6:19 Paul encourages us to take hold of life that is truly life. By implication, this means that there is life that is really not life at all, but death masquerading as life. It is this imposture of life that our culture worships. Thus, the culture focuses not on the life to come, but exclusively on life in the fallen world. The 21^st century is unlike the 19^th century in this regard. The afterlife was a dominant theme in 19^th century literature. The rise of  existentialism in the 20^th century paved the way for a post-modern culture that is captivated by life that is not truly life. This is why you must not let the culture shape your children's view of death.

Someone recently wrote in and asked how to talk with a young child who had just unexpectedly lost a close relative.  This is a subject we have not yet specifically addressed in this blog, but it is a question that needs good biblical answers. The discussion must be addressed with gentleness and care.  There are some things that can and should take place to prepare for this discussion. So, let's start with laying a solid biblical foundation about life and death.