All the days numbered . . . .

Three days in to the new year and we have three funerals from within the church family!

One question people appear to ask me a great deal goes something like this, ."Why did [insert name] die when they were such a good Christian?" There is often an 'of' inserted somewhere in the question, especially when the person who has died has met an early end.

In the case of an early death, I have to point out that being a Christian is not a remedy against dying (temporally) and take them to a most wonderful Psalm (139) where it tells us that "All the days numbered for us were written in the Lamb's book of life before one of them came to be." This Psalm tells how God knew us before we were. He knew us when we were being formed in the 'secret place' (that is our mother's womb) and we are made aware that whether we go into the depths, or up into the heights, into the darkest of places - He is there with us and sees us (for the darkness is as light to God - I love that phrase).

I recall a new Christian coming back to tell me of his discoveries regarding the book of Ecclesiastes. "There's nothing new, it's all been done before, we just think we're being new, clever or innovative!" He went on to sum up the whole of the Old Testament as he understood it, "Seems to me that the good die young and the wicked live to a ripe old age so the key must be to be good enough to keep in with God but be wicked enough to avoid his anger but live a bit longer!"

We come into this earth with a fixed span before us, which fortunately we don't know (wouldn't that be an awful existence?)

We come and live as we are and as we choose to do.

We might come from abusive backgrounds, but we can make the choices not to be abusive parents.

We might come from a background of alcohol and drugs and yet we make the choices that see us engaged in the same or free from such ills.

It once was that we were at peace with the fact that we can't choose to have different coloured eyes, be a different height, have different hair colouring or be a different sex. Of course today you can buy different coloured contact lenses and change (apparent) eye-colour to suit your clothes (or mood). You can wear shoes to make you taller (good luck on that one!). There are so many hair dyes available today that any colour is open to you (until your hair finally dies from all the chemical abuse) and of course, people can change their gender (but regardless of the appearance, not, as I understand it scientifically, their sex!).

We make our choices and we live according to them. There's no such thing as 'bad luck' just 'bad choices' on the part of the person who inflicts the pain or the person who feels it. . . . and then you die.

The three lovely people who have died where I am faced hardships, challenges, conflicts and yet reached their finishing line having run their race, victorious.

The job of a dog-collar is to help people die well. A privilege and sometimes (not always) a joy.

For those whom Christmas and New Year season speaks of loss, empty places around tables and pain - I pray that God will dry eyes, comfort you and bring you His peace and as we look to the Spring and Easter, a life full of the Joy of the resurrection promise.

For those who we have lost I pray that God grants them rest and eternity with Him.

Well done Margaret - dona eis requiem