He Fell Asleep

Acts 7:60 KJV
And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
With a little imagination, a person can envision the violence of this text. There can be very few ways to die, it seems to me, that would be more painful than stoning.
The violence and anger of the mob who had cast him out of the city
The yelling that must have accompanied their stones
The pain of the rocks pelting his body

This would have been a frenzy. Yet the Bible says when Stephen asked the Lord not to lay this sin to their charge he just "fell asleep."

Great peace belongs to the one who knows how to forgive. Despite
The anger,
The busy-ness, and
The violence
of life, the one who has learned to forgive and leave justice in the hands of the Lord will be the one who can lay his head down in peace and sleep.

This is certainly true in day to day life, but it might be truer when it is time to die. Surely the best way to die, the way to die in peace, is to die having forgiven.