I heard of a little lad named Kenny who developed leukemia. The disease progressed rapidly. Soon he was unable to go to school, then unable to go out at all, and finally confined to his bed. One day he asked the question his mother had most feared hearing. "Mother," he said, "what is it like to die?" Though she'd steeled herself for that moment, she couldn't handle it when it came, so she excused herself and went out of the room. And there in the bathroom she prayed, her knuckles as white as the porcelain in the sink top.

Then, guided by God's Spirit, I believe, she went back into the bedroom and said, "Kenny, you remember how when you were a very little fellow you sometimes would fall asleep in my bed? And how the next morning, when you would waken, you would find yourself in your own bed and in your own room? Do you know how that happened? That happened because while you were sleeping, your big brother came, or your father came, and he lifted you up and carried you so gently to your own bed and to your own room. That, Kenny, is what death is like."

The youngster smiled, for he understood. A few weeks later he fell asleep, and while he slept, his elder Brother and ours, his Father and ours, came and lifted him up and took him off to his own room and to his own bed.