Walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death17
According to the National Center for Health Statistics there areroughly 2,398,343 deaths in the United States every year (2004findings).
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The current US population is around 300 million(302,923,496 people as of September 20, 2007), according to theUS Census.
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So roughly 0.79% of Americans die every year.While that is a small percentage there is a real impact in terms of people left behind. This is a yearly number—that means a similar amount of people die every year adding to the impact of deathamong us.Looking at the US deaths per year, this means that if everyonehad at least five relatives or friends who cared about them, roughly11,991,715 people will lose someone they love every year in theStates! Within five years, this number increases to 59,958,575 people who survive a loved one’s death. While some will repeatlosing a loved one, many others will be acquainted with death for the first time. Within a little over 25 years, all things being con-stant, everyone in the US population will survive a death! Of course, not all things will be held constant. But this illustrates thatmost people, if they live long enough, will survive the death of a parent, sibling, spouse or child. As the church body, we need to beready to bring comfort and support to everyone who has lostsomeone significant in their life.The current “death rate” of about 817 to 100,000 people is arecord low.
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While this is not a lot of deaths in terms of worldstandards, death’s impact still reaches far. Assume again that eve-ryone has at least five people who will be greatly affected by their death. Then every year about 4,000 people per 100,000 will sur-vive someone who was significant to them. The current life expec-tancy is 77.9 years.
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If the death rate remains somewhat the same per year and everyone has about five people who will be greatlyaffected by their death, then each of us who lives the standard lifeexpectancy will survive three to four significant deaths in our life-time! That means that you, reader, will likely lose two parents, aspouse and maybe a child, unless you die first. Dear Christian, thatmeans that you need to be ready to care about people around youwho will lose significant relationships due to death. As an author said, “To love is to risk losing.”
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