THE FRAGILITY OF HUMAN LIFE
ALM 92, August 2026
ESSAYS
When I was twenty years old, I had formed a rather unusual habit: I would borrow a book from the library and go to my father’s grave, where a large cherry tree grew and a bench stood in its shade. It was there that I read several interesting authors. What I loved most about that place was its complete stillness. Yet one morning, something disturbed me.
As usual, I was making my way to my reading place along a winding path between the graves when my attention was drawn to a newly dug grave, a sign that someone was to be buried that very day. I walked to its edge and looked down into it, thinking, “Is this all? Is this where all the running and unrest of human life finally come to an end? The lifeless body is laid in the grave, earth is thrown over it, and that is it. But where are his dreams, his aspirations?”
Something within me rebelled. At twenty, I felt the flame of life burning strongly within me. I loved life; I longed to live. Then I understood why Tolstoy had been so terrified of death.
I lifted my eyes toward the clear summer sky, filled with that blue one never tires of gazing at. The sun’s rays warmed my body, and the solar disc shone majestically above me. Far off on the horizon, the city could be seen, with the bustle and struggle of a new day. People swarmed like ants, rushing into the unknown of the morning. Then three questions rose in my mind: “Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?”
I tried to find answers in the books I had read up to that point, but I did not possess them. There were only vague ideas, faint glimmers of what might lie beyond death. Yet my thoughts paused on a book I had only just begun to read: the New Testament. There, indeed, it was stated with certainty that through Christ’s sacrifice every person could receive eternal life, provided he accepted and fulfilled the conditions so clearly set forth in its pages.
I sat down on the bench beneath the cherry tree and remained there in thought, no longer feeling like reading. Looking at the graves around me, I told myself that in each of them lay a life broken in the claws of death.
Perhaps they had been simple people who now rested there. They too had known joys, dreams, and accomplishments. Some had tasted life fully: a job they loved, family ties, a home. They had also known the other side of life, its bitterness, until death overtook them. Others had lived as intellectuals, lighting the way for others in their fields, until death reached them too. Still others had led lives full of hardship and deprivation. There has also existed, and still exists, that category of people who trample underfoot all divine and human laws, running along life’s roads in moral perversity.
Yet the true victors were only those who, while alive, believed in God and died with the divine promise in their hearts: that at the second coming of Christ they would rise again and receive eternal life. These people lived with that hope, and when the hour of death drew near, they were able to face it with the help of a gracious God.
In his book Fathers and Sons, the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev placed the following words in the mouth of one of his characters: “The life of every man hangs by a thread; an abyss may open at his feet at any moment, and yet he invents all sorts of troubles for himself and poisons his own existence.”
The Bible says: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field. The wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more” (Psalm 103:13–16).
Scripture states with certainty that man is not immortal. In regard to the fragility of life, he is no greater than the grass of the field. And I ask myself: what would become of us, as human beings, if we did not have the hope of eternal life through Christ? We would have before us only a few short years of existence, often filled with suffering. The Bible contrasts our state of weakness and transience with the power and saving plan of God.
Some time ago, I spoke with two people about the resurrection. Both told me that they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. They believed that we are too evil for God ever to raise us again. I tried to draw their attention to what the Bible teaches about receiving salvation through faith and grace. It is true that the process of sanctification follows, in which man cooperates with the Divine in order to live a life worthy of biblical standards. As the fruit of these dimensions of salvation, we receive the promise of resurrection in glorified bodies.
“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’” (John 11:25–26).
Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, yet without sin. When he ascended into heaven, he took with him the human nature he will bear throughout all eternity. He is the giver of physical life and of eternal life. And when he said that those who believe in him will never die, he was referring to the first death, which the Bible describes as a sleep from which people will awaken.
“And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11–12).
I believe that the greatest joy a person can know on earth is communion with Christ through the Holy Spirit. And when this earthly life comes to an end, believers have the promise of eternity. Our limited minds cannot fully understand such things; we can only accept them by faith. The Bible describes the rebirth of this planet: Christ will recreate a new heaven and a new earth, where righteous people will dwell. We are told that there will be no more pain, evil, or death. And rightly do I agree with the Apostle Paul when he writes in 1 Corinthians 2:9: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human heart has conceived—these are the things God has prepared for those who love him.”
It is of great importance that, in this fragile life we live, we begin to know God through his Son, as he is so beautifully described in the Gospels, and also through spiritually inspired writings.
I would like to use an illustration to help us better understand the generosity of God, who desires our salvation. Suppose a man in Romania, living in the deepest poverty, received an offer of a work contract and a visa for Canada, but refused it. What might one think of such a man? In the same way, why do some refuse Christ’s tender invitation to salvation? Is it really so difficult to understand that we have no future brighter or more glorious than this?
Charles Dickens wrote a book entitled Great Expectations, in which he portrayed the dreams of a young man striving to gain an education and succeed in life. Yet for us, the true great expectations are found in the future God has prepared for us: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans for peace and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).
The Bible teaches us that, at the second coming of Christ, those who have ended their earthly pilgrimage in the hope of the resurrection will rise in glorified bodies and be taken up with Christ in glory. And those who are still alive, having lived in the joy of this hope, will likewise be caught up toward heaven, clothed in transfigured bodies. Although, in some measure, they have already lived the dimension of eternity on earth through the spiritual life, they will then enter it fully.
After his resurrection, Christ’s disciples met him on several occasions: they spoke with him, ate with him, walked with him, and received words of encouragement from him. But one of the most sublime moments came when they saw him ascend into heaven before their eyes, bearing human nature upon himself. Then they understood the reality of the great truth of eternal life, and the fact that he would continue, in the heavenly sanctuary, the work of salvation he had begun on behalf of humanity.
I think of the journey the redeemed will one day make after being caught up: through the universe, toward the city of God, accompanied by Christ and his angels. Then will come their triumphant entrance into the New Jerusalem. What could we possibly imagine, as we look toward the future, that would be more exalted or more filled with hope?
“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must clothe itself with the imperishable, and this mortal body with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Corinthians 15:51–57).
Eugen Oniscu is a Romanian writer living in Germany. His fiction and essays explore migration, faith, suffering, moral conflict, and the lives of people at the margins of society. His work has appeared in international literary publications including Adelaide Literary Magazine, Fiction on the Web, Literary Heist, Literary Yard, Rue Saint Ambroise, and DreckSack. He is also the author of several collections of fiction, essays, and spiritual testimonies.
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