From Death to Birth

If we can ever get deep into our hearts that death is transition and not annihilation, that death is a movement from one context of living to another, then it becomes clear to us even at the end of our life in history that every exit is an entrance, every experience of death is also the prelude to an experience of birth. It can give rise to an enormous sense of hope that God is able to give us new places to grow and new things to become. We cease to be totally afraid of death and see it as moving into another arena of God's everlasting growing.

- John Claypool in "Hopeful Coping with Grief"