This weekend a 29-year-old American woman called Brittany Maynard plans to die. Brittany has an inoperable brain tumour and lives in a US state that permits assisted suicide. She has decided to die the day after celebrating her husband’s birthday.
I do not know what it is like to be told you will die from cancer, or how that news feels for the wider family. As a mother, I recall the excitement and nervousness of waiting for the birth of our first child. Of not knowing when this baby would arrive and of hoping all would be well. After complications, Alisha was born by emergency caesarean. Because of this, our next two children were planned caesarean births.
I therefore knew exactly when Scott and Sofi would be born. But I don’t know when they will die, or the circumstances that will surround their deaths. Naturally, I hope that this will be many years after my own, but there are no guarantees. Nor do I know how my own life will end. And so, at one level, I understand the attraction of Brittany’s plan, which places death within her control. But at the same time, as our article by Australian palliative care physician Dr Frank Brennan discusses, death is a mystery.
Euthanasia is a tempting solution to the perplexing problem of leaving this world. But, as a follower of Jesus, I believe God teaches us lessons throughout our lives—including at its end. God also teaches us lessons through the deaths of those we loved. Lessons of compassion, empathy and forbearance. In the sometimes extended season of a person’s passing, God also invites us into conversations that really matter, forming memories that can bring comfort for years to come.
Join with me to pray for those who encounter matters of life and death up close, where there is sadness and anxiety and perhaps pain that needs to be well managed. Pray that in these challenges, there will still be moments of happiness and celebration and peace.
Christina Tyson
Editor
2 Peter 3:9 The Message
‘God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change.’
2 Pita 3:9
‘Kahore he whakaroa o te Ariki ki tana kupu whakaari, kahore e rite ki ta etahi e ki nei he whakaroa; engari e manawanui ana ki a tatou, kahore ona whakaaro mo te tangata kia ngaro; engari kia tae katoa ki te ripeneta.’