'Where there's shadow, there's sun' - says an old man in an English story. Commenting on this, author John R. Gunn writes, "Even the shadow of death has its Sun; therefore, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. The prophet Isaiah declared, 'We all do fade as a leaf.' Yes, but the fading leaves of autumn, live again in the green leaves of spring and like the leaves, we do but fade and die to live again.
As Bulwer-Lytton surely sings 'There is no death; the leaves may fall, the flowers fade and pass away. They only wait through wintry hours, the coming of the May.' One said when facing death, now I shall learn the rest of that beautiful adventure we all must take. Although there are many things about death we do not know now, of this we are assured - that it will be an adventure leading to discoveries beyond anything we have dreamed."
'To die is gain', said Paul. Interpretting this, someone has said, "To live is to see God through a glass darkly; to die is to see Him face-to-face; to live is to be in the oar; to die is to be smelted and come out pure gold; to live is to be in January and December; to die is to bask in the eternal sunlight, close by the fountain of life. Concerning the nature of death and our future life, the Bible tells but little. It tells enough, however, to assure us that there is an eternally bright side to death.