” There’s more to life than living and more to death than dying.” Those are the intriguing words on the cover of Finding Frances, a 2010 novel by Janice M. Van Dyck. Frances is a 74-year-old woman who, beset by…
Phil Lineberger “Through a Glass Darkly”
When the phone rang in my hotel room in the middle of the night, I knew. I’d dreaded this call for weeks, begged God that it would never come. Becky, more than a thousand miles away, wept on the other…
SBC leader calls on churches to confront suicide
By Bob Allen Suicide is “a very serious and tragic reality” that every minister will encounter, Southern Baptist Convention leader Frank Page advised students at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in a recent chapel address. Page, president and CEO of…
There is purpose
There’s an argument going on. Sometimes you have to listen closely, but it’s rumbling beneath the polite noise of our sophisticated society like the background radiation of the Big Bang, filling every black hole as it sweeps across an infinite…
Learning to think more clearly about death
By Russ Dean She was surrounded by family and friends in the warmth of her own home. Her breathing stopped; the light went out; she was at peace. It was apparently just that simple when Brittany Maynard ended her fight…
Dying well, part 2
In part one I asked some big questions, shared the tragic story of Brittany Maynard, and offered a quick explanation as to why we as Christians cannot support her decision to end her life “on her own terms.” In this…
Dying well
By Jonathan Waits Do you want to die well? Do you want to die with dignity? I suspect that desire resides in the hearts of just about everyone. But what does it really mean to die well? I’ll admit, at…
Dying well, part 1
Do you want to die well? Do you want to die with dignity? I suspect that desire resides in the hearts of just about everyone. But, what does it really mean to die well? I’ll admit, at 32 and healthy,…
Friends in the Valley of Shadows
I remember it like it was yesterday. Except it was 2005, and it wasn’t a single instance. It was two years after I graduated, and I was living with two of my best friends from college. And, I wanted nothing…