Precious in His Sight: Remembering Colleen Chao

I married in my mid-thirties and my first (and only) pregnancy was labeled “geriatric.” Despite feeling youthful at age thirty-five, I had a tremendously challenging pregnancy that lived up to that geriatric bar—and then ended abruptly when my son arrived a month early. Even labor and delivery was a bumpy ride as my son’s heart stopped beating and a flurry of medical personnel worked furiously to restore his in-utero vitals. 

But, oh, the moment I saw my beautiful boy for the first time and took him in my arms, holding him tight and tender—I knew I could have endured that pregnancy a hundred times over to experience this kind of love, this flesh of my own flesh, this long-awaited gift from God. I didn’t yet know I wouldn’t be able to have more children, but this little one made up for all future loss. 

There’s a Hebrew word in the Old Testament, yaqar, that means “highly valued, costly, precious, prized, rare, weighty.” The birth of my son was yaqar in every sense of the word. He was (and still is) an extraordinary gift from God, an answer to many years of longing and prayer, a beautiful soul on loan to me. 

Precious Beyond Words

Thinking on my own yaqar experience gives me a window into how the Lord feels about one particular day of my life (and yours) that’s fast approaching. Psalm 116:15 tells us, 

Precious [yaqar] in the sight of the LORD
is the death of his saints. (Psalm 116:15 ESV)

If I were to choose any number of adjectives to describe how I feel about my impending death, or the death of my loved ones, precious would not be among them. Scary, dreadful, painful, and grievous, yes—but precious?

Yet that’s exactly what God says. He treasures the day of my death as someone treasures a rare and costly jewel (or the birth of their only beloved son). To Him, my final breath is of great value.

If we linger here for a moment, we’ll feel what a massive and marvelous truth this is. But do we find this idea anywhere else in Scripture? Is this just a one-off, or is this a recurring theme? To my surprise, I’ve found multiple places in the Bible that indicate how deeply God cherishes the death of His saints: 

The time had come for the LORD to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind. (2 Kings 2:1)

You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me up in glory. (Psalm 73:24)

So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the LORD’s word. He [God] buried him in the valley in the land of Moab facing Beth-peor, and no one to this day knows where his grave is. (Deuteronomy 34:5–6) 

Enoch walked with God; then he was not there because God took him. (Genesis 5:24)

But God will redeem me from the power of Sheol, for he will take me. (Psalm 49:15)

“When you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will tie you and carry you where you don’t want to go.” [Jesus] said this to indicate by what kind of death Peter would glorify God. (John 21:18–19)

God’s Love on Display

It might sound strange, but I see God’s love on display in these recorded deaths. I can almost feel God’s eagerness to take Elijah Home to Himself when I read, “The time had come . . .” It echoes the sentiments of the psalmists: 

All my days were written in your book and planned before a single of them began.
(Psalm 139:16)

My times are in your hand. (Psalm 31:15 ESV)

The day of your birth and the day of your death, and all the days in between, are planned and held by God. Although He exists outside of time, it’s as if He’s counting down the days till He can carry you Home. 

Even as I feel God’s eagerness to bring Elijah Home, I sense His tender friendship with Moses as He buries him in a place known only to Himself. And His fierce love for Peter as He describes the kind of death he will die in the future. God cares about all the details surrounding our death—not just the day we pass into His presence, but all the moments leading up to it, all the suffering circumstances surrounding it. I love how the Romantic poet, John Donne, put it: 

Howsoever they die, precious in his sight is the death of his saints, and with him are the issues of death; the ways of our departing out of this life are in his hands.¹

If you too have lost dear ones to cancer, you know how cruel a death it can be. None of us wants to “depart out of this life” in a distressing way. For the sake of my husband and son especially, I wish I could die quickly and gently, instead of going slowly and cruelly while they look on helplessly. Although these thoughts are heavy, I risk sharing them with you so I can also share what’s helping me face the prospect of that kind of death: God holds my death-day dear to His heart and “the way of my departing is in his hands.” 

How I die will bring Him glory—and His glory always brings me, and my loved ones, immeasurable good. Jesus told Peter he would die a terrible death but that it would matter eternally. So that’s how I pray: that even in the cruelest hours of my dying process, my family and friends and I would know the love of Christ and the glory of God.

Jesus Will Be There

Not only will Jesus be there with us and our people when we breathe our last—but He will also be there with us and our people when our bodies are lowered into the ground for burial. The same God who cared for Moses’ burial will care for yours and mine. While our souls will instantaneously go Home to be with Him, our buried remains will lie in anticipatory sleep till the moment He transforms “the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). He knows what it is to suffer a dreadful death (His was the worst in the history of humanity), and He understands what that death does to the loved ones left behind (see John 11:1–36 and 19:26–27). And He cares for all of it, every detail of it—the declining days and the hospice days and the burial days and the grieving days.

Every day matters. Every last day. That is what strengthens me to face the continued suffering and the dread of days that will only get harder. That is what keeps me from taking “the easy way out.” That is what shapes my prayers today for my family’s grief tomorrow.

If I experienced such indescribable happiness and love at my son’s birth—when he entered a broken world with a broken body and a sinful soul—how much more does God long for the day when we leave behind our broken bodies, our sin and our suffering, and we’re birthed into everlasting life!

It is precious beyond words to Him.

O for the eye of faith divine,
To pierce beyond the grave!
To see that friend, and call him mine, 
Whose arm is strong to save! 

That friend who left his throne above, 
Who met the tyrant’s dart,
And (O, amazing power of love!)
Receiv’d it in his heart.

Here fix my soul, for life is here,
Light breaks amid the gloom; 
Trust in the Saviour’s love, nor fear
The horrors of the tomb.

Jesus, in thee alone I trust,
O tell me I am thine!
I yield this mortal frame to dust,
Eternal life is mine.²

¹ John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions and Death’s Duel (Random House, 1999), 156.

² Anne Steele, Refuge of My Weary Soul (Shazbaar Press, 2017), 333.

This post is an excerpt of On Our Way Home by Colleen Chao (©2025). Published by Moody Publishers. Used by permission.