It usually takes some major crisis before people really think about life and death. Culture tells us that death is scary and painful and life is fun and fleeting, so we'd better make the most of this time.

But the cold, hard truth is that there is one guarantee in this life: We're all going to die.

A few months ago, a cement truck swerved to avoid running into a line of slow traffic. The driver plowed across the road, into my cousin’s SUV, and came to a stop when it hit a fuel truck. Flames burst from beneath the trucks, a plume of angry black smoke rose into the sky. My cousin, Jason, died instantly. I got a phone call from my mom the afternoon of the accident. When she told me, I changed instantly. Another person’s death had never impacted me like Jason’s did. It was like someone ripping off my security blanket and throwing a bucket of ice water on me when I was in the deepest sleep. Heaven and hell are real. But Jason knew Christ, and it brought me great comfort to know that he was in heaven.

I wanted to know how other Christians deal with the stark reality of this world. Some people deal with the hard realities of life and death in their daily lives.

William Cannon (photo above) is the executive director at Cannon Mortuary in Des Moines. When I talked to him, the air conditioning had been out in his office and it was the hottest part of the summer. Despite that, he was dressed in a suit and tie and he even put his jacket on for the photos. Regardless of the heat, Cannon was as relaxed and cool as anyone could be in a hot, humid mortuary. I expected people who constantly work around death to sound depressed, but that wasn't so with Cannon. Not necessarily bright and cheery, just business as usual. It's likely because Cannon has been around funerals almost his whole life.

He told me a story about his first experience with a funeral home. His uncle had died when he was six, and he remembers being fascinated by the coffins he saw in the mortuary. “My aunt picked me up and put me in to let me see how it looked. It felt like a deep enclosure, and I remember watching as my aunt brought the lid down,” says Cannon.

That experience sparked his interest in the funeral business, and he’s been caring for the deceased ever since. But it’s not just dealing with the dead that interests Cannon. As an ordained minister on top of being a funeral director, his whole life revolves around the spiritual. And because of his love for Christ, Cannon’s service is as much to the living as it is to the dead. “The funeral service is actually for the living. It’s an opportunity for the living to know that to be united with Christ is to be reunited with their loved one. If someone at the funeral doesn’t know Christ and they want to help that void, they have to come to know Jesus because he’s the only way,” says Cannon.

While Cannon deals with death as a funeral home director, Dr. Eden Murad deals with people in every stage of life as a family doctor at Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines. He helps people “from womb to tomb,” as he puts it—from conception to birth to death and everything in between. Murad is a tall, quiet man with an understanding voice. Sit with him for five minutes and you can tell he knows how to listen. When he speaks, he’s thoughtful and his words are soothing.

I met him twice at a tea shop. The first day he was taking administrative time, so he was relaxed and unhurried, and we chatted for over an hour. The second time, I had some follow-up questions, and I caught him on a day when he was on duty. He managed to sneak away from the hospital to meet me, and it was like a different man walked into the tea shop—still calm and thoughtful, but dressed in green scrubs and intensely focused; so much so that I could tell his mind was somewhere other than our interview.

As a doctor, Murad is able to appreciate human life and draw strength from the God who created the people he works to heal. “My profession teaches me the value and beauty of the human body, but Christ helps me understand the purpose and function behind that body. God has everything to do with my profession. But every other profession should be that way, too,” says Murad.

Without God and without caring, Murad says his job would be reduced to that of a technician. It’s due to empathy and knowing the Lord that Murad is able to help his patients. When he sees people, he looks at their physical, social, intellectual, and spiritual well-being, and if one is out of proportion with the others, he works to restore balance in that person’s life. “People share things with you they don’t even share with their spouses; things they don’t even want to share with themselves. But drawing that to the surface is part of the healing process. If people have no spiritual life, I try to direct them—not necessarily to Christianity, but I am willing to put up Christ against others,” says Murad.

And while Murad’s job is to guide people in living a healthy life, Cannon’s job is much the same, even as a mortician—to lead the living he encounters into a healthy understanding of what death means and how we are to cope with this life. “People say, ‘I don’t know how I’ve been able to deal this far.’ I let them know in all I say and do that God, in all his infinite wisdom and strength, is able to keep them in times of sorrow,” says Cannon.

Knowing that burden is being carried makes all the difference. In Murad’s profession, too, he says that some of the happiest moments he has are when hurting people cry out to God in prayer. “You can’t imagine the joy when I come across a patient who wants to pray about what’s happening. I’ll suggest, ‘Maybe we should pray together,’ and then we ask for God’s help,” says Murad.

Sometimes the hardest part of Murad's job involves life when it's most delicate. “I cry when a baby dies or when a mother kills her baby. I see two patients coming in one day, and then the next day I only see one. I don’t mind saying abortion is wrong,” says Murad. Because life is so fragile, Murad can face an emotional roller coaster in his work.

“One day you deliver a baby and it’s fine and you’re rejoicing. But delivering a dead baby to a mother is worse than any deformity, worse than anything. Emotionally, I weep. You just have to persevere and take the good with the bad. Sometimes you get raisins, sometimes you get grapes. God never promised you grapes every day,” says Murad. But God does come through. It was that way for me with my cousin. Murad’s seen it in his life, and Cannon has, too—God changes lives when people cry out to him, even when people don’t.

On the surface, between these two men lies what seems to be a world of difference, but because of Christ, their job descriptions are essentially the same—lead people to life.