All of my days

We live life living, loving, laughing in death’s face

Poster in my RE classroom circa 1980… I was too young to note who wrote it.

Yesterday morning I went for a walk. It was a warm, sunny May day. The trees, their leaves, the grass beneath them was lush and rich. Birds were calling and looking after their new families.

I bumped into my neighbours; a young couple, out walking their dogs. We stopped and chatted. My dogs larked about with theirs. They joyfully announced that they were having a baby in September. We laughed and delighted together at this wonderful news.

Yesterday evening I looked out of my kitchen window. There were two ambulances parked opposite, their blue lights frantically flashing. My elderly neighbours’ garden was full of people: their children and grandchildren. All eyes were fixed on two paramedics who were working tirelessly together, alternating to give CPR to someone on the grass, behind their low garden wall. Annie was watching on from her zimmer. It had to be George.

After, an agonising age, the paramedics stopped pumping his chest and sat back on their heels. Heads bowed low. There was nothing more they could do. His family looked each other in disbelief and grief. Some looked and silently cried; some quietly sobbed and held each other; one ran out of the garden and around the street, wailing.

As the defibrillator was put away, as the medics began to peel away, as the family went into groups to hug, I gently walked across the road and slipped through the family to Annie, sitting briefly alone on a chair. She was looking in disbelief at the pale blue blanket on her lawn covering George. I hugged her. I cried with her. As her silent tears fell she said “He was chopping wood to take to be recycled tomorrow”.

Later that night I reflected on the two events and the contrast: new life beginning; experienced life ending. Two people in time: one about to enter this world; one having left. Neither having control over the day of their birth or death. Tomorrow is now today. George is gone. He did not know he was going yesterday. It was just another day.

I think about how thin is the veil is that divides life from death, between now and forever. As a child this scared me. What was life? What is death? I was not from a family of faith. No one could help me with these questions. I started to look for God and ask Him. I reached out to Him, talked to Him and He found me and listened. He answered some questions, not all, but some. I discovered that simply knowing that He was in control took away all the fear of the unknown. That this life now is just the start of something eternal.

I also found out that each day I live is not random but designed by God.

¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;

    all the days ordained for me were written in your book

    before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139 v 13 – 16 – Good News Bible

I keep a journal, take a picture, video a special moment. But He has already ordained all my days. The Hebrew word for ordained is ‘to mould, to form, to squeeze into shape … like a potter with clay. Gently working with me, my life, to be something that is lovely.

Life is so precious and fleeting. I don’t remember my birth. I don’t know when I will die. But my I do know that all of my days are ordained. He doesn’t just check me in and out of this world, He knows and is intensely interested in my every day and has written about all of them in His book. Not just special days, but all my days.