We were rather nervous when Melissa got pregnant for the second time. Our first born, Benjamin, was eleven weeks premature and, because of the difficulty surrounding his birth, we didn’t want to put another child through a similar situation. So, needless to say, our discovery caused much anxiety for the two of us.

But God, being good, walked us through the first eight months without many issues and sooner than we realized we were in the hospital for the second time. Only this time, the situation was much healthier than before. Melissa would spend a few weeks in the hospital gearing up for the baby’s entrance while the doctors and nurses watched over and cared for her. Our daughter would be brought into this world a few weeks early but God was working it all out. We definitely noticed.

The night our daughter was born was both triumphant and tragic. For our family, it was joyous. Yet for another family, it was jaded. Excitement was brewing in our little hospital room for a life soon to be born but, in that same moment, echoes of mourning could already be heard for a life that was ending. Doctors and nurses ran back and forth, grabbing this thing and that thing, running down the hall to a room with a mother, just a few years older than my wife, who was dying.

Personally, I found myself in a difficult position. As I walked down the hall, past the room where the mother lay dead, my heart broke; a feeling that usually accompanies such an enormous loss. “What if that was my wife, my mother?” were the thoughts going through my head. But at the same time, I was filled with joy and anticipation because this night would be the night I’d meet my beautiful daughter, Bella, for the first time. It was as if my own personal universe was being thrown off its axis and into a whole new dimension. Little did I know this difficulty would drastically elevate the moment I stepped outside.

Our daughter was born in a small hospital in a small town in Oregon; the kind of place where everyone knows everything about every situation going on everywhere. So when I walked outside and saw a man trying his hardest to hold his composure, yet failing to the extreme, I knew it was the mother’s husband.

He was pacing back and forth talking to someone on his cell phone. One moment he was talking. Another he was weeping. And the next he was shouting things like “Why?” and “How am I going to take care of the kids by myself?” His world was falling apart. His kids wouldn’t grow up with their mother. The same day I celebrate the birth of my daughter is the same say he mourns the death of his wife. If you think about it, and if you have lost someone close to you, you can understand just now tragic it can be.

Two hours later, my daughter was born. She was beautiful and healthy and alive. And I boasted my newest treasure for all our family and friends to see. I took pictures and helped print her little foot on her birth certificate. It was triumphant; everything but tragic.

People die. We weep and mourn. People live. We leap and dance. Death and life – there is nothing new about either of them. They’ve been around for, well, the beginning of creation. We understand this. We live and cope and continue and refocus and move on but we still grieve and mourn and cry and remember. We are surrounded by death as soon as we enter this world, so from a young age we gather a common perspective of what death looks and feels like.

But what if we changed our perception concerning death? What if we look at death as the greatest gift that life can give?

For those who put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, this concept of death immediately becomes attainable. Our new awareness of death gives us the ability to turn our mourning into dancing and our sorrow into joy; a revived and renewed hope that our lives are not lived in vein. We hold fast to the promise of Revelation that “God will wipe every tear from our eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

So we will continue to weep and mourn for those who have passed away, only because we will miss their time here with us. This is good and normal and right. But our strength isn’t based on our situation. It comes only from knowing that God is good and that He’s making all things new. And we’re equally thankful that God’s goodness isn’t based on our situation. It’s based simply on the fact that He is good. He is holy and wholly righteous. And knowing this beautiful nugget of truth should change our situation.