Casket Doors

 These are pictures from our trip to Winchester, VA. One of our stops was to visit Stonewall Jackson's Headquarters. The house where he stayed during operations in that area is now a museum of sorts and offers tours. This particular architectural feature intrigued me. In one room there are "casket doors". Under the window the wall was used as a small double door so that during deaths the casket could be slipped out of the house into the hearse or wagon.

What intrigued me about this feature was the fact that the builders thought about not only the life of the owner, but also the death that was sure to take place. So many people these days buy a house and never expect to be there the rest of their life. I certainly don't have any thoughts that I will spend my whole life in this house.
But even more than just a house, people don't want to think about death in any situation. We have euphemisms for death so that it doesn't seem so direct: passing on, going home, crossing over. We speak of those who have "gone ahead" or whom we have "lost". But we don't speak about the actual act of dying; it is too dirty for our clean, little lives.
I was reading Luke this past week and was caught by this: "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive." Luke 20:38 The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the body, to them death was final. I can not imagine what my outlook would be if I thought this world was the end in and of itself. To know that God is not finished with me when I die means the whole difference in my outlook on life, and yes, death.
Death might be painful, hopefully it will be peaceful, but it isn't final. It is a goodbye to what I have known here, and a hello to what I have hoped to know but couldn't. God built my house with casket doors, and I know that one day he will slide me out of this life and into the one to come where I will live with Him for eternity.