in the system

Working in a hospital, one thing I've discovered is: medical records are never destroyed. It doesn't matter if the patient dies, or moves to the North Pole, or gets abducted by aliens. Once a record is created, it's there in the system. Until the end of the world.

One further oddity about medical records, at least where I work, is that they never stop counting your age. When a patient dies, of course the pronouncement of death is noted in the chart. But the record continues to show the patient's current age, as if he or she were still alive.

I think that's an interesting analogy for human existence. Once we receive life in the womb, we are "in God's system"--forever. Each chapter in the story of our lives is recorded indelibly in God's memory. Just like the memories of those we care about stay with us--except that, unlike us, God's memory is perfect and never fails.

And even when we die, when our bodies finally break down, we are not deleted from the mind of God. On the contrary, we remain in Him, and our stories continue to be recorded. Because to God, we are still alive. "Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him" (Luke 20:38).

The story that God wants to tell through us goes on--even after the end of the world.