Why does God allow us to die?

Tonight my 11 year old son asked my why God allows us to die?  As we continued to talk he shared with  me that he was worried that he would die soon.  While I am not sure what brought this to his mind tonight, if I had to guess I imagine it is largely due to our family attending the funeral of my sisters grandmother yesterday.

What do you tell an 11 year old about death?  While I am not sure what anyone else would say, I first read him Romans 8:38-39 - "38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (KJV)

I then proceeded to discuss the fact that we are all born to die, it just is.  We continued that it is not if, but when that causes many of us the most angst.  I told him when we try to predict the future it causes us anxiety, this leads to stress and worry.  We then walked through concrete examples/proof that none of us can predict the future with any consistency.  Therefore we should believe/rely on the fact that God loves us no matter what as Romans 8 says.  Furthermore, Matthew 6:27 tells us, "Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"(NIV)  We ended with me telling him that it wasn't God's choice but a choice by Adam and Eve that led to sin which the Bible says is death (Romans 6:23).  He smiled and seemed to accept my explanation so we prayed and I kissed him goodnight.

After he left, I pondered our conversation a bit more and reflected on what the pastor said at grandma's funeral yesterday.  His main emphasis was, we all know we are going to die but ARE YOU READY? This makes a lot of sense, we put much preparation into school, work, cooking, building, exercising, etc... Why not as much preparation into our plans for eternity?

I once took a class on public speaking, the instructor continued to hammer home the more prepared we are, the easier the speaking event would be.  Not only was she correct with regards to speaking but I have found this to be true for life as well.  So I ask, how are we preparing for the things which cause the most angst?

Many things in life we have no control of, but we do have the ability to prepare for (as best we can) and seek assistance for those things we find too difficult to handle.  The most difficult part of our journey can often be in obtaining the strength it takes to face the giant which towers over us.  I have found that if you try to ignore the giant it only becomes larger.  My son is facing and working on that scary giant called death, how are we doing with our giant(s)?

Blessings,
-d