What is death like? Here is a simple incident as told by Dr. Peter Marshall, chaplain of the United States Senate during 1947-49:
In a certain home, a little boy, the only son, was ill with an incurable disease. Month after month the mother had tenderly nursed him, but as the weeks went by and he grew no better, the little fellow gradually began to understand the meaning of death and he, too, realized that soon he was to die.
One day his mother had been reading the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and as she closed the book the boy lay silent for a moment, then asked the question that had been laying on his heart. “Mother, what is it like to die? Mother, does it hurt?”
Quick tears filled her eyes. She sprang to her feet and fled to the kitchen, supposedly to go get something. She prayed on the way a silent prayer that the Lord would tell her what to say, and the Lord did tell her. Immediately she knew how to explain it to him.
She said as she returned from the kitchen, “Kenneth, you will remember when you were a little boy, you would play so hard you were too tired to undress and you tumbled into your mother’s bed and fell asleep. In the morning you would wake up and much to your surprise, you would find yourself in your own bed. In the night your father would pick you up in his big strong arms and carry you to your own bedroom. Kenneth, death is like that; we just wake up one morning to find ourselves in the room where we belong because the Lord Jesus loves us.”
The lad’s shining face looked up and told her there would be no more fear, only love and trust in his heart as he went to meet the Father in heaven. He never questioned again and several weeks later he fell asleep, just as she said. That is what death is like.
From Catherine Marshall, A Man Called Peter (New York: McGraw Hill, 1951)
Peter Marshall (1902–1949) was a Scottish-born Presbyterian minister who became one of the most influential religious voices in mid-20th-century America. After immigrating to the U.S. in 1927 and graduating from Columbia Theological Seminary, he served as the pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., where his “pictorial” preaching style and heartfelt oratory drew massive crowds. In 1947, he was appointed Chaplain of the United States Senate, a role in which he became famous for his “pithy” and insightful prayers that resonated with national leaders during the post-WWII era. Though he died of a heart attack at just 46, his legacy was immortalised by his wife, Catherine Marshall, in her bestselling biography and subsequent film adaptation, A Man Called Peter.
Read another anecdote of Dr. Peter Marshall at https://wellsprings.in/keeper-of-the-spring/