“Perhaps some of my fear of death came from my mum,” says Åse, now 55. “She had lost a little girl, my sister, before I was born – and I had been born with the umbilical cord around my neck and nearly been strangled. Mum had also lost an older brother – and her dad died when I was three”.
When Åse was 12, a schoolfriend was raped and murdered.
Later she lost more friends. Two girls in their twenties committed suicide. Several were killed in traffic accidents, or died of cancer. Two married friends lost two small children through a rare, genetic disease. Then Åse’s parents and grandparents died.
Although Åse was a Christian, her fear of death grew. “At times I felt an overwhelming fear that I would soon die, and started giving away personal possessions in a panic, for people to ‘remember me by’.
” Åse started to shake off her fears when a friend showed her what the Bible says about resurrection. But then he too died, from cancer.
“I was devastated” says Åse. “I had been convinced that God would heal him. Why had He allowed it? Why didn’t He do something?”
Later Åse moved to the UK. One day in church a young man died during an epileptic fit.
“I didn’t know him well, but on the day of his funeral I was paralyzed by grief. On that day someone prayed with me and I started to respond in a more ‘normal’ way: I began to be able to weep at funerals, and a lot of bottled up grief
was released.
“When a friend was murdered in a similar way to my school friend, the same feelings surfaced, which had been buried during my childhood years. But this time they were not allowed to have power over me, they were released. Another friend died of AIDS two months later. The Lord then showed me how she was welcomed in heaven by the friend who had been murdered. That knowledge was very precious to me.”
Then in a church meeting someone felt God was speaking to them about a woman who had had a very traumatic birth, where she nearly lost her life before it had begun. As a result she was oppressed by a fear of death. “I immediately knew that this was for me. God was speaking to me!” Some Christian friends prayed with Åse afterwards and she knew she had been freed.
“The Bible describes death as the ‘last enemy’, which is why it is connected with so much fear and pain” explains Åse. “But Jesus overcame death when He rose from the grave, and the same will happen for those of us who believe in Him. We will be with Jesus forever, away from suffering and pain”.
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