Facing Death and Life

 Alfred P. Sloan was involved in General Motors for many years and was its president at a time when he wanted to see  Norman V.Peale.  He was  suffering from such  depression that he would not leave his house,  since he had lost his wife of 50 years.He was devoted to her.
Sloan said to Peale, "I want to ask you a simple question and I don't want any weasel answer or philosophical discussion....Here's what I want to know.  My wife recently died. I loved my wife and depended upon her. When I die, will I be with my wife again.?.....
 Peale's answer was  yes!  Why are you so sure? asked Sloan.
 "Mr. Sloan,  to be sure that you will meet your wife in eternal life, that quality of life must be in you.  Tell me, then, your identification  with the verse of Scripture: 'And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that does not have the Son of God  hath not life.  These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God. (I John. 5:11-13)
 Sloan looked him in the eye,  "I believe and I do have the Son of God."
 Also, do you subscribe to the following? 'If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved (Rom. 10:9)
 Again he affirmed his faith,  "I do so confess."
 Peace shared with him the parable of the unborn infant which is shared below.

 "In the course of years of ministering to the dying and as a result of my close association with death, I have gradually evolved an absolute conviction that physical death is by no means the end and that enhanced life continues after mortal life is concluded.  And it is my unequivocal belief  that life on the other side is of much higher grade than on this side.  If we look upon mortal life as an incredible miracle, what an even more incredible experience will be that higher-level existence we call eternal life.
 For many years at services commemorating those who have been translated from mortality to immortality, I have used a parable, the truth of which I personally believe to be unassailable. I think this idea come to me from something written years ago by Leslie Weatherhead of London. Let us suppose that an unborn infant in its mother's womb is able to reason and express itself.
Suppose also that someone says to it, "Soon you will die out of this present  state in which you are living or, as we in life call the process, you will be born."
 The infant might protest,  'But I like it here. I am fed, warmed, loved, and cared for. It is so pleasant  and I am very comfortable. I don't want to die out of this place or be what you call born.
 However, the change is inevitable and the moment comes when the infant does 'die,' or finish its appointed time in the womb, and it is born. Then what?  The baby looks up into a beautiful face and into eyes looking down upon it in love. The infant is cuddled in loving arms, and is astonished by the wonder of the thing that has happened. The child soon discovers that all it has to do to get anything he or she wants it so cry or coo.  Everybody loves the baby and runs to do its bidding. So quite soon the infant says,  'Why, this is wonderful. This place they call earth and what they describe as mortal life is so much better than where I came from. This life is a great improvement  over the former one.'
 And so the years of happy childhood pass, and the child becomes a youth, then moves into the exciting and creative years of young adulthood, and on into full maturity.  He (or she) marries, and his children in turn experience the joys of parenthood and family.  He knows the excitement and enjoys  the rewards and engages in the struggles; solves the problems and knows the tears and laughter of life.
 Then he begins to grow old, and perhaps the infirmities common to him.  One days the thought of death comes menacingly.
 Again he is told, or more likely he tells himself, "I cannot say here. I will pass away. I am going to die.'   And, as before, he protests,  'But I don't want to die. I love it here. I do not want to leave this place.  This has been my home for so long. I love life, the mystery of the dawn, the glory of sunset, the loveliness of changing seasons.  I love to feel the crunch of snow under my feet on a winter's night and to smell the rain on a summer's day  and view the beauty of faraway hills half lost in their haze of blue. I don't want to leave those I love. I don't want to die.
 But nature again takes its course. He does die.  Now what happens?  May we not rationally believe that he does not die, but instead is born once more?   He looks up into a face more  beautiful than that of his mother. Loving eyes look down upon him  and underneath him are the everlasting arms.  Again the law of development and growth proceeds--this time in a land, as the old hymn has it, that is 'fairer than day.'  (The true joy of positive living, p.276-77  Norman V. Peale)