The Number of our Days

There was a lot going on in town today. It was the annual Bluey Day. It’s a day, when in sympathy for those who undergo chemotherapy, and, as a result, lose their hair, people young and old voluntarily shave their heads. In preparation for today, my grandson's 11-year-old friend dyed his hair bright pink a month ago. Both of his grandmas had breast cancer and one died from it.

A couple of weeks ago, he sent me an e-mail, asking if I would like to sponsor him, and I said yes, of course I would. Today when we arrived at the shearing station to cheer him on, he was $1.70 short of having raised $2010. The significance of the amount did not escape us, and I hunted through my change for the $1.70. When his turn came, we watched as the volunteer from the hair salon ploughed a path from his forehead to the nape of his neck with her electric cutter. After his head was shaved, we took pictures of the kids with him. Well done!

Another event today was the annual Relay for Life, a fundraiser that takes place in towns and cities large and small all across the nation. The junior high school track is the site for this 10-hour walk, with teams sporting names such as the Chemo Queens, Gunning for Cancer, and the Rootin’, Tootin’, Shootin’ for Pink Mountain Mamas. On the Memory Board, participants can post photos of those who have died from cancer. The closing ceremony, with more than a thousand luminaries (a white paper bag decorated with the name of someone who has survived or died from cancer; a tea light candle is placed inside the bag) lining the edge of the track is quite moving. The word HOPE is spelled out with luminaries. We walk a silent lap and remember.

How much time and money will it take before cancer is beaten? I don’t know . . . but these events remind me that we are not God . . . and neither is cancer.

It is God who gives us our breath. When we leave this earth, it is not some random accident. Our life is in God’s hands. He knows the number of our days.

Our hope is not in research funding, as needful as that is. It is not in earlier detection, better care, or chemical miracles.

Our hope is our God and our Saviour. Psalm 71:5 says: For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth.

On days like today, this comforts me.

The End of An Era

I lost a great friend today.

A long-time friend who loved me with all his heart. I believe there is nothing he would not have done for me.

He was my spiritual father. He preached the gospel to me, the good news of forgiveness and salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He prayed with me as I confessed my sins and received new life in Christ.

I first met this man when I was 16. Although he was just over four years older than I was, I always thought he was a lot older. He was already mature in God. He was a leader in Montreal Youth for Christ. This Christian outreach youth group operated in many high schools in Montreal, but, for some reason, was not allowed in to Macdonald High School, where I was in Grade 10. An alternative arrangement was made, and a group began in the home of a member of the local Presbyterian Church. I attended this group because it was in the home of a friend (my boyfriend’s sister’s boyfriend!)

It was there that I first heard the gospel. It was there that I prayed the sinner’s prayer. It was there that I turned my life over to Christ. It was there I received forgiveness.

That was more than forty years ago. In the forty years since that time, I saw that this friend was a man who loved God. He loved the Word of God. He used to joke that he’d forgotten more scripture than most people ever knew. I saw a man who was fervent in his search for the things of God.

I saw a man who, when his first wife was killed in a plane accident, gave glory to a sovereign God and did not falter in his faith. Many eyes were on him at that time, and the faith of many was strengthened.

Through the providence of God, I was blessed with the friendship of his second wife, who became my dear, dear friend. I drew close to their family, and their family and my family spent countless hours together. Talking, playing, planning, studying. Always returning to the history we had together, to the bond of love in Christ that bound us to each other.

This great friend was a man who dreamed big. He had grand ideas, even if he didn’t always have the ways and means to bring them to fruition. He was never downcast. It was always “onward and upward” with him. Today, he went onward and upward. Today, he went home to be with the Lord.

He was a dynamic and charismatic person, and I loved him. I loved his love of the Word. I loved his love of God. I loved his laughter, his voice, his smile. I loved him for who he was. I loved him for the man he was in God. But mostly, I just loved him.

Ross Walter Bracewell. February 20, 1947-May 28, 2010.