I once heard it said that we arrive in this world kicking and screaming—and that we leave it much the same. Such is the tension of being human: entering a life we do not understand, attached to a world we did not choose, slowly learning what it means to belong.
On the way in, our soul enters a body completely dependent. We cannot feed or steady ourselves. Every need is met by another. We begin as dust animated by breath—fearfully and wonderfully made, known before we ever knew ourselves. Even then, we were held.
And so it is on the way out.
We return to smallness again—needing help, surrendering control. The strong grow fragile. The independent become dependent. For dust we are, and to dust we return. Yet what God breathed into us was never dust to begin with.
There is no resurrection without death. The seed must fall before it rises. What feels like an ending is often the doorway to glory.
Along the way, the world becomes familiar. We begin to believe we are steering our own course. But the quieter truth remains: in Him we live and move and have our being. Breath was always borrowed. Time was always grace.
And when the illusion of control fades, we realize the only thing we ever truly carried was our soul. The body, like a cloak, is laid down. What was sown perishable is raised imperishable.
We entered crying for air.
We leave exhaling into eternity.
Not lost—but returning.
Not abandoned—but received.
For to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord.
Prayer
Father,
Teach us to hold this life with open hands.
When we cling to control, remind us that our breath is Yours.
When we fear surrender, steady our hearts.
And when our time comes, receive us gently—
as children coming home.
Amen.
