Jamie Ferguson is dying. She has Huntington’s disease. She’s had it for over five years now. The disease destroys her brain cells a few at a time. This disease in incurable. Jamie is most assuredly going to die. That’s not the problem.

The truth is we all are going to die. From the moment that I took my first breath the clock began to wind down toward my last breath. None of us gain time during our lives. All of us age and none of us get any younger. Time and taxes are the enemies of us all. We are all leaving here. None of us came to stay. That’s not the problem.

The problem is that we don’t want to admit the truth. We would rather busy or medicate or hypnotize or anesthetize ourselves so that we don’t see death coming until it runs over us like a Mac truck. We don’t want to talk about it and we don’t want to have to face it. That’s where Jamie comes in.

Yesterday she sent a text message to some of our girls that said she was ready to kill herself. All of them tried to contact her and she wouldn’t answer their calls. They didn’t know where she was and they were afraid that she might be in the process of taking an overdose. They frantically called and sent text messages and went to her house but they could not find her. It turns out that she was in the UAM library when she sent the message. She was having suicidal thoughts and they came out in her text.

The girls were irate, and rightfully so. Jamie tried to play it off but they would have none of it. All of them wanted to talk to me about it; Jamie, the girls, everyone involved. Jamie wanted to go home and the girls wanted me to give her a piece of my mind; I can’t spare any of those pieces although I’d like to trade a few of them in for new ones. It was not a pleasant afternoon.

But here’s the simple truth; Jamie is dying and she knows it. And no matter how tough it is on all of us we must learn to deal with it and with her as she learns to deal with it. I don’t know what it’s like to look at myself in the mirror before I go to sleep and know that the next time I look in the mirror I won’t be the same person. Jamie knows that every time she closes her eyes she slips further away from life and closer to death. She realizes what is happening to her and she is powerless to stop it. That reality could drive a person to harm themselves or at least to want to and she is probably going to tell us that over and over again until she dies. And guess what? We are going to have to deal with it.

But let me tell you a little secret. The next time you look into a mirror pay a little more attention to yourself because you are not the same person either. Every day you are slipping further from life and closer to death. You are kidding yourself if you don’t think so. Youth is deceptive. You are not going to live here forever. We are all dying. We’ve got to deal with it. We have to prepare for it.

So cut Jamie and all those like her some slack. Be assured, I chewed her out for what she did. I gave her a piece of my mind that I couldn’t spare but then I hugged her and told her that I loved her. She went to the ER with her mom and she’s going to have to get more counseling. She’ll have to have more help than I can give her to deal with what is coming.

Remember that “it is appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgement.” So get a grip on yourself. Death is a reality. Deal with it. Prepare for it. Don’t ignore it. As a matter of fact, if we would follow Jesus, we are supposed to make it a part of our daily routine. “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matt. 16.24, niv)