his life in this world

I read somewhere that people (in general) wish they could live to be very, very old; that we seek immortality. Not talking about the spiritual kind, but the physical. The whole health nut phenomenon and natural diet fads are all ways to maximize the number of years we have on earth. Myself, I've never understood that desire. I want to live long enough to see my kids get older, have families, and establish their lives, but beyond that? I've never been one that sought to see the other side of 100.

My father is dying. He has been in congestive heart failure for years. He is in the middle of a steady march toward complete renal failure. And knowing all of that, his eyes tell me that he'd prefer all this to go away sooner rather than later. In fact, his DNR is clear evidence that prolonging anything is the opposite of his heart's desire. And unlike my mother, I don't have it in me to try to persuade, urge, or yell at him to seek every option possible to squeeze every extra second out of his body.

The most famous song in the musical "Rent" is the song "Seasons of Love". That song preaches the message that you don't measure a life, or even a year in a person's life, through something as prosaic as the passage of time. You measure everything through the lens of love. My father sacrificed literally everything he had over the past thirty-five years for his family. Before I knew Christ, I knew about Christlike sacrificial love through my father. And in that measurement, my father has earned the right to see his end sooner without interference than later through wires and machines and external insistence. And when that end comes, his 70+ years of love will exceed the longer years of many others devoid of such a heart.