Messy, Beautiful Life

Director of Generosity and Stewardship Natalie Akin shared this devotion at our weekly staff meeting and we thought it was too good not to share.

I’ve been thinking a lot about death this Lent. I know that’s an abrupt way to begin, but despite my efforts to explore other topics, I kept feeling nudged back to this one. Like many, I’ve long struggled with death – so much so that even writing about it has felt like inviting capital-D Death too close. So why push through and talk about this difficult topic? Why not leave it buried and move on to easier things? Honestly, because I couldn’t. The Holy Spirit wouldn’t let me.

Ash Wednesday is blunt about our mortality – from dust you came and to dust you shall return. And this year, on Ash Wednesday, I learned that a college friend had died. We hadn’t kept in close touch, but the news was a shock. She sang with me, and she started a silly retreat tradition of eating cake without using hands or utensils (and ending up with cake everywhere). I have a vivid picture in my memory of her with cake all over her face. She was fun and caring, and even though I hadn’t seen her in years, I felt her loss.



Then I started reading A Different Kind of Fast, which introduced me to the idea of “Sister Death.”

"Rather than a presence only at the end of our lives, death, as St. Francis wrote, can become a companion along each step, heightening our awareness of life's beauty and calling us toward living more fully. Living with Sister Death calls us to greater freedom and responsibility."

That idea stayed with me. Not as a shield against the inevitable but as a way to embrace my humanness and honor God’s creation. And once I stopped avoiding the subject, I found it everywhere – books, conversations, even my Spotify shuffle.

For our April meeting, my book club chose Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which I had read and loved a few years ago. I made the unusual (for me) decision to reread it, and many passages stood out, including: “We think we make bucket lists to ward off regret, but really they help us to ward off death. After all, the longer our bucket lists are, the more time we have left to accomplish everything on them. Cutting the list down, however, makes a tiny dent in our denial systems, forcing us to acknowledge a sobering truth: life has a 100% mortality rate. Who wants to think about this? How much easier is it to be death procrastinators?”

Even Willie Nelson chimed in, as Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die found its way into my rotation more than once. My mom loves that song – fitting, given her own near-death experience. Maybe it was hearing Willie’s irreverent reverence that finally made me write all this down.

And here’s the most surprising thing: Sitting with Sister Death this Lent hasn’t left me more anxious. If anything, my fear has faded. I have no control, no foreknowledge – I have only this life. And I want to live it.

I want to be present with my children, and I want to willfully ignore their requests for another game of High Low Flip in favor of the book that’s been calling to me. I want to wander aimlessly outside with my dog who sniffs at every last blade of grass, and I want to listen out for the birds while I’m doing it. I want to pull weeds and plant seeds in my garden while my husband picks up sticks, mows the lawn, and talks to his moss. I want to have long, meandering phone calls with my parents while I sit at a tween soccer game. I want to have last-minute backyard gatherings with friends (why are those always the best attended?). And I want to eat cake and enjoy it so much that I get it everywhere.

Basically, I just want to live. And maybe that’s the invitation of this season – not just to remember that we will die, but to live more fully because of it. Holy Week is almost here. Good Friday waits for us, as it did for Jesus. And in walking toward the cross with open eyes and open hearts, we can begin to see what resurrection really means.