Dressing Up Death

Part I Sizing Up Death

Chapter 1 Going Shopping

This opening chapter focuses on specifically how the death, and thus grief, took place for the reader. Using the realistic metaphor of dress, the reader can then relate to the underlying theme throughout the entire book of the abnormality of death not fitting. Whether the death was sudden, such as an accident, or slow, as in a terminal disease, the reader will see that no one chooses the outfit of grief.

Chapter 2 The Dressing Room

This chapter highlights the emotions and the tug-of-war feelings that come with death and grief. From denial to acceptance, and all the emotions therein, the reader will find comfort and hope that he/she is not alone as the author zeroes in on how we try out best to fit into grief somehow. It is in the dressing room we first dress up death in order to accommodate the reality that we actually live in a fallen world that indeed fits like a glove with our fallen human nature.

Chapter 3 The Purchase

This chapter brings to the forefront how we ‘sell out’ and accept that death is just a normal part of life. We tell ourselves that death is no big deal. Thus, we purchase the fit that God Himself never designed for us, or Him, to wear. By tracing the origin of why death is abnormal, the Garden of Eden, the reader will get his/her first glimpse at what was sold to Adam and Eve through Satan’s deception: death. By comparing and contrasting the reader’s own account of grief to the lie in the Garden, the reader will view a God who never intended any of his children taste the abnormality of death. Readers will find this chapter a refuge as the author gives personal examples of how she too made the purchase only to find herself in deeper pain and suffering.

Chapter 4 Taking Home the Outfit

Once we have bought into the lie that death is normal, we then take the outfit home to wear. On the way home, however, we find ourselves denying the very person God created us to be; life givers and receivers. As if something were indeed rotten in Denmark, or deep within our souls, the reader begins to feel uneasy with the whole aspect of death.

Chapter 5 The Tell-Tale Mirror

This chapter brings to the end the first part of the book, Sizing up Death, by looking at what lies deep within those who have buried family members, friend, and loved ones under the best of circumstances or the worst of situations: that death is radically abnormal. Try as we might, death is the most abnormal experience we have ever known intimately. This chapter bridges readers into part two of the book, Wearing Grief and Life, and begins to expose the tell tale mirror of why death is abnormal Biblically.

Part II Wearing Grief and Life

Chapter 6 First Time Out

This chapter focuses on the disciples and how they too tried to wear grief in relation to Jesus about as well as the reader tries to wear his/her current loss. While the disciples told themselves they would go back to their normal lives before being chosen by God, they could no more dress up death better than the reader does today. Although we may laugh at the disciples attempt into seclusion of having never been affected by God, we too wear grief out for the first time in public about like they did of yester year. It didn’t fit back then and it still doesn’t today. By drawing a parallel between the disciples and the reader’s own personal loss, the reader will find comfort in that he/she is not alone in the uncomfortable outfit of grief.

Chapter 7 The Dilemma of Death

After coming to terms that death is abnormal, the reader will then delve into the reality of why grief is so difficult to wear in terms of personal application. By engaging the reader to intimately and honestly ponder his/her own feelings associated with the loss, this chapter sets up the theme of the book and God’s perspective Biblically on death and grief.

Chapter 8 A View from the Throne…or Floor

Readers will find this chapter their favorite, as they are comforted like nothing else. That is because God does the holding. The author uses the argument that while there is a “time to be born and a time to die,” (Ecclesiastes 1:2) the real question posed in this book is whether or not God, the Daddy on the throne, thinks death is normal or not as He watched His only Son be murdered on a piece of wood that fateful Friday. Grief was no more ‘normal’ and ‘fit’ for God Himself that day than it is for us today. Thus, by Biblically using God as the author of death being abnormal, the reader finds a refuge like none other as he/she watches the Daddy on His knees and on heaven’s floor wailing for His nail pierced Son. This chapter focuses on how the reader’s own feelings regarding death and grief are in essence the very nature and heart of God Himself.

Chapter 9 Getting Real and Smelling Great

This chapter incorporates Mary of Bethany who anointed Jesus with perfume before His death. Does God understand the pain we are feeling and the utter helplessness of grief? Without a doubt God does and this chapter serves as a visual and moving example of how God sees into the hearts of those whose pain is so overwhelming that only truly He can fathom their heartfelt actions that the world dismisses. This chapter also links the theme of the final and culminating chapter and what captivates the Savior’s heart like nothing else: love.

Chapter 10 Wearing Him

This final chapter leaves the reader pondering what is so abnormal about death and more specifically why. This chapter engraves on the readers hearts that death is about life. Thus, readers will walk away having given God their rage, pain, suffering, as well as asking who He created us to be; life givers and receivers. This closing chapter highlights the reader’s own personal journey with grief not by ignoring or dressing up death, but rather by exploring with all honesty the search of why God Himself experienced the abnormalcy of death. The reader closes this chapter and book with a sense of not answers but rather questions, that serve as a mere backdrop into God and the quest of what He longs for all of us to wear. What was stolen publically in the Garden so long ago would one day be bought publically by the blood of Jesus. The Garden was just a glimpse to the finality of the cross.

Satan’s perceived plan of defeat through death would allow each reader the freedom to step into what ultimately fits. Him. Life. Love.