The Importance of Spirituality at the End of Life

Contributed Post

The idea of God and an afterlife are not the sort of things that the younger generation really consider important, after all it is likely to be decades before they have to consider the possibility that they are not immortal. For anyone over 40 I’m sure that will ring true.

As we get older we see the past and the future, then as we age there seems to be more past and less future to consider, that approaching wall over which no one can see can be unnerving.

At some point everybody realises that they are getting older, that it takes longer to drag themselves out of bed in the morning, that mowing the lawn used to be a simple job and now it causes aches and pains everywhere, try that maybe we should get someone in to fix the roof rather than trying to get up the ladder ourselves.

We realise that the best may well be behind us and that what awaits is cramps, arthritis and other age related illnesses as our body starts to fall apart and worse than that, the degradation in our mental abilities.

Have you ever walked into a room and forgotten why you went in there ? then spent the next few hours trying to remember.

It is about this time that most people start to consider that maybe there is something after death, after all if death is the end then why suffer through the last decade of aches and pains just to stop being. This is when people tend to look towards religions and spirituality in general.

If the mind can continue after death, free of the aches and pains of old age then there is something worth fighting for, something that justifies the long drawn out run downhill to the buffers at the end of the track.

There are many religions around the world, one thing they all seem to have in common is the idea of life after death, maybe a good life or possibly a bad life, there are always options as to where the mind will go.

The idea that being a good person, of repenting your sins or making amends for past transgression appeals to us as we age. Nobody is a saint, we have all done things that may have seemed like a good idea at the time but turned bad later. The premise that these bad actions can be forgiven, or written off against our good deeds in determining where we go after we die is the core of many a religion.

Spirituality in whatever form appeals to you is a comfort that makes life liveable as you age, it is the warm comforter on a cold winter's night, the roaring fire as the snow falls, it is what allows you a degree of solace when your partner of decade passes and leave you alone for the first time in years.

Religion and spirituality in whichever form you are comfortable with is what gives us hope and from hope springs eternal life.

Amelia Evans is a freelance writer and works as a content manager for various international brands. 

When Amelia is not researching and writing she loves nothing more than heading out into the country for some downtime. Amelia is currently writing for Be in Health.