Yesterday was Dawn’s birthday. She passed from pancreatic cancer in 2017.
She would have been 60 years old.
Her FB page is replete with small testimonials to her love and her grace.
A good friend and reader wrote:
“Went for a visit today. Someone had been there before me and left a birthday balloon. I was glad. She loved celebrating a birthday and not just her own. Again this year I am giving thanks for her life and for her legacy of kindness and compassion. Praying that God will cultivate the seeds that she planted so that we can all show that same kindness and care for others.”
Another friend posted:
“My fav. Dawn story: Not long after my mom died, I mentioned at happy hour one Friday afternoon that Sundays were hard for me because my mom always called me on Sundays. That Sunday-there was a knock on my door-and there stood sweet Dawn with flowers for me. I remember it like it was yesterday. She was one of a kind!”
For my part, I can hardly believe where I am now and what has happened since those terrible days of pain and anguish before she died and the loneliness and grief after.
All I know is she fervently prayed I would become a better Christian man than I was during our marriage.
While that may be still up for debate, I know that it wasn’t until I immersed myself in His Word every day (after I had moved away from Savannah) that I felt some semblance of renewed purpose after her death.
From my daily reflections, I was led to Karen (who lost her husband and my best friend, Dan to brain cancer in 1995).
Dan would have been 63 this year.
Karen and I talk often about them. Neither of us can go through a day without reference to our past lives or actually tripping over some small artifact–like a picture or a book, or in this case a FB post–that reminds us of our great loss.
I think it’s natural to think of Dawn and Dan as angels up in Heaven–on puffy clouds strumming harps–waiting for Karen and I to finish tidying up our worldly mess and join them.
But that’s not correct.
Dawn and Dan did not become angels at their death.
God has His angels and they aren’t one of them. And we won’t be either when we pass–at least not according to the angelology that Brian Sauve and Ben Garrett share in Haunted Cosmos: Doing Your Duty In A World That’s Not Just Stuff,
Reading, thinking, reflecting, and writing about God and His Word is largely a philosophical pursuit.
Either you think about this stuff some or you have thought about it some and don’t want to again because it is of no help to you throughout your day. God is infinite with no beginning and no end and that is a daunting theology that doesn’t seem to mean all that much when the day gets cranking.
But angels aren’t philosophical–they are created beings like you and me.
Sauve and Garrett write:
“Angels are created beings, and this changes things. In fact, a study of the angels is inherently not philosophical…They are unseen spiritual beings that are yet somehow also personal and distinct, not omnipresent, not omniscient, and not omnipotent–which is all very complicated. But they are created. They are, even if only in this singular sense, like us.”
And so they should be considered–if but for a moment.
Psalm 148 is pretty concise about them:
Psalm 148:2 Praise Him, all His angels; Praise Him, all His heavenly armies!
J.R.R. Tolkien, from The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, notes the created nature of angels:
“We call on all created things to join in our chorus, speaking on their behalf.”
Zebras and rhinos and house cats are created things too but they aren’t serving the Lord in His army.
Charles Spurgeon describes the angels of the Lord:
“Living intelligences, perfect in character and in bliss, lift up your loudest music to your Lord, each one, of you. Not one bright spirit is exempted from this consecrated service. However many ye be, O angels, ye are all his angels, and therefore ye are bound, all of you, to render service to your Lord. Ye have all seen enough of him to be able to praise him, and ye have all abundant reasons for so doing. Whether ye be named Gabriel, or Michael, or by whatever other titles ye are known, praise ye the Lord. Whether ye bow before him, or fly on his errands, or desire to look into his covenant, or behold his Son, cease not, ye messengers of Jehovah, to sound forth his praise while ye move at his bidding.”
Angels are like us.
Just unseen.
And there is a dizzying hierarchy of angels–based on Scripture–that Sauve and Garrett review like they were David Attenborough narrating a BBC nature special on angels.
(For more on these categories, see the Haunted Cosmos podcast, Concerning Angels).
There are messenger angels who interact most directly with us. There are the “principalities” angels who look after us on a national scale. There are the “dominions” angels and the “powers” angels and the “thrones” angels. There are the ophanim, the angels that Ezekiel saw in the wheels within a wheel. There are the cherubim (the ones who guard Eden) and the seraphim (the warrior angels)–and the arch-angels Michael and Gabriel.
As much as I have thought of Dawn as an angel on earth and certainly an angel now in Heaven, clapping her hands every day I get up to search out the Truth in His Word–she is not.
Dawn and Dan are souls. Spirits. Catholics would call them saints.
They are no less real to me in Heaven than when they were here on earth with us.
They await Karen and I–for we long to be with them again. 🙂
Lord, we echo the praise of Your holy angels in singing of Your holy glory.
Lord, stir our hearts to worship You as they do, with unwavering devotion and joy.
Amen.