Death: Physical and Eternal

In an age when death hovered so closely—
from war, illness, wild animals, infection, childbirth, and injury—I
would expect parents to grasp their children tightly to them, to keep
them always in sight. On the contrary, Jonathan and Sarah, already living
in Stockbridge on the treacherous edge of the wilderness, allowed
their ten-year-old Jonathan Jr. to travel with an evangelist even further
west on a mission to Indians in the mountains—their ten-year-old!
This didn’t mean they were ignorant of the perils. This was the
time that Jonathan wrote to Jonathan Jr. about the death of a playmate.
“This is a loud call of God to you to prepare for death. . . . Never give
yourself any rest unless you have good evidence that you are converted
and become a new creature.” No, they were all too aware of the nearness
of physical death. But the death of the body was not what called
forth prayers for and pleas to their children.
The imminence of physical death made them fear not the removal of life,
but the absence of life eternal.

-Noel Piper
"Faithful Women of an Extrodinary God"