“It’s a strange thing to realize and accept your mortality at 26 years young. It’s just one of those things you ignore. The days tick by and you just expect they will keep on coming. Until the unexpected happens.”
This is how a dying woman’s letter to the world begins.
Holly Butcher was from Grafton, in New South Wales, Australia. She was an athlete, representing her state in squash and hockey. But she developed Ewing sarcoma, an extremely rare form of cancer, and died last week.
Her family then posted her letter on Facebook. It is making global headlines today.
Holly notes that life is “fragile, precious and unpredictable and each day is a gift, not a given right.” She advises us to “work to live, don’t live to work” and to “do what makes your heart feel happy.”
She realizes that time spent on small frustrations–“You might have got caught in bad traffic today, or had a bad sleep because your beautiful babies kept you awake, or your hairdresser cut your hair too short”–is time wasted: “I swear you will not be thinking of those things when it is your turn to go.”
And she notes that life is not in our control: “I don’t want to go. I love my life. I am happy . . . I owe that to my loved ones. But the control is out of my hands.” However, this is in our control: “Tell your loved ones you love them every time you get the chance and love them with everything you have.”
Facing death can bring great clarity to life.
Two men who “walked with God”
I have been thinking recently about Enoch, a man who “walked with God, and he was not, for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). According to the English Standard Version Study Bible, “walked” translates a Hebrew verb that “conveys a sense of an ongoing intimacy with God.”
What does it mean to “walk with God” in this way?
A few verses later we read, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9)….
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