See? Here is water ...

I get to baptize someone today.

Bernice first came to Gospel Mission just after last Christmas with an amazing healing testimony. While in Winnipeg, she fell ill, and the doctors were somewhat at a loss as to what to do. Her mother and grandmother are Christian leaders on their reservation and started praying over her -- the power-packed healing prayers that Charismatics can get into -- and Bernice, miraculously, recovered.

Since then, she's come to the Mission often, if not exactly regularly. She's talked about her marriage and things that have happened between her and her husband -- which haven't been all pleasant, from the sounds of things, but she doesn't go into detail, and she seems to have struck a balance between forgiveness and wisdom.

A couple of weeks ago, she came up and said she wanted to be baptized, and she wanted me to do it. We're doing it today at the Mission, where there's a baptismal tank.

About an hour ago, it hit me, that this is quite an honour. The act of being baptized is many things:

-- a public declaration of faith and acceptance of new life in Christ

-- the actual physical "washing" of one's life and emerging clean and renewed

-- the act of emulating Jesus' death, descent to Hell and His resurrection

That last one, of course, wasn't the kind of baptism performed by John the Baptist, but the first two were -- even the "new life in Christ" part, although I doubt many of the people who came to John at the river understood it. But what else could account for the new life, as they repented of their sins and then had their lives washed clean by the dunking in the river?

Even Jesus -- the One who had no sins to wash away -- got baptized.

And to be the one presiding over that baptism is both an honour and a responsibility. I'm honoured that Bernice specifically asked me to do it; it's also a responsibility to help disciple her and be there if she has questions or worries or concerns or just something to share in the years to come. It's a responsibility to say the Right Words or pray the Right Things over her -- and for that, I'll have to put it all in the Holy Spirit's hands and let Him guide me.

I'm grateful for a sermon Cal Weber preached at Westpointe a few weeks ago, talking about the Ethiopian eunuch who was led to the Lord and baptized by Philip the Evangelist. Cal pointed out that being black, from a different country and culture, and missing the "male parts", the eunuch would likely have been barred from worshipping at the Temple in Jerusalem -- which is why the eunuch was on that road in the first place. Yet the message of the Gospel is that Jesus sacrificed Himself to remove any impediment anyone might have to a relationship with God. Those who may have been rejected by The World are more than welcome with Jesus.

Like it or not, being a native Indian woman living off the reservation and on Vancouver's Downtown East Side, one might say Bernice is in a position of being similarly rejected. By being baptized and declaring she's surrendering her life to Jesus, she's saying that what The World thinks doesn't matter anymore.

Even those who don't immediately pigeon-hole a native woman on the Downtown East Side in a certain way often look on her with pity, as a victim of something. Bernice is also saying that she's refusing to be a victim, but rather is an overcomer. Read what it says in the second and third chapters of the Book of Revelation about what God promises to overcomers. God loves victims and has compassion for them, but He sent His Son to give us the power to overcome the things that victimize us. Today, Bernice acknowledges to the world that she has received that new life, that "overcomer" status ... that power.

9/11 - Thanks for taking the bullet

A year ago on this date, I wrote the following on another blog. Time to revisit, with a few updates.

There are so many memories of Sept. 11, 2001, but the one that is firmly burned into my brain is from late September, 2007. I had always heard of and seen pictures of those giant hook-and-ladder fire trucks, with a steering wheel at the rear, but it wasn't until I went to New York for the first time (first time, that is, since 1960, so it might as well have been the first time) that I actually saw one. There was the long truck, and the firefighter sitting at the rear steering wheel, turning it in the opposite direction to the way the truck was turning. I was fascinated -- for a moment.

That fascination was suddenly overwhelmed by what else I saw on the fire truck: decalled onto the side were eight names, and above the names, the date Sept. 11, 2001. These were the names of the firefighters that company lost at the World Trade Center on that morning.

I found other poignant reminders of the attack during that trip. Interestingly, the least poignant (although still poignant) was Ground Zero itself -- still an excavation hole, and still controversial in its own right, as the daily papers reported continually on various scandals and allegations regarding management of the new structure to be built there. My friend Arlene had an interesting reaction when I caught my first glimpse of the Empire State Building, shortly after she'd picked me up from Pennsylvania Station. I said, "wow!", and she replied, "we had an even bigger 'wow' right down there" -- gesturing south, towards where the WTC used to be.

Pastor Reggie told me how they watched the second building go down from the roof of the Bowery Mission and then provided shelter services. In Canada, there is a fringe element (if you've ever read The Chrysalids, you'll catch the special nuance of the word "fringe") that wants to push the idea that "9/11 was an inside job"; that shadowy figures with connections all the way to the Oval Office planned and executed the attacks in order to provide an excuse for attacking Iraq and protect the interests of the international oil illuminati: a sort-of Watergate meets the burning of the Reichstag. I haven't heard all their evidence for this (although a lengthy investigation pretty much skewered one part of their argument two weeks ago, when it was found that WTC 3 -- a smaller building which collapsed a couple of days after 9/11 -- was not destroyed by cunningly planted bombs but by fire started by the initial attacks) but I remember reading one of Mike Moore's reasons for believing President George W Bush knew about the attacks all along. He apparently looked "dumbfounded" when an aide told him as he was speaking to a school class in Florida. Don't know about you, but I'm not sure how I'd react if someone had just told me that the two biggest office buildings in the world had just been reduced to a pile of smoking rubble; I would say, though, that "dumbfounded" might be one of the options.

Mind you, we Canadians tend to be a smug and self-righteous lot. I was like that, myself, for much of my life. I would look at the United States, and like the Pharisee standing next to the publican at prayer, say, "thank God that I'm not like them!" We were so quick to condemn Americans during the race riots of the 50s and 60s, yet we seemed to forget about Japanese internment and the Head Tax and native residential schools and the turning away of the St-Louis and the Komagata Maru.* We take great delight in the general inferiority of our neighbours to the South. "They couldn't find Saskatchewan on a map!" we say, amid nudges and guffaws, without actually saying why anyone would want to. At the 2006 World Junior Hockey Championships, the crowd at Pacific Coliseum cheered Norway in its game against the USA -- not because we have a high percentage of Norwegians in the area, but because the crowd wanted to see the Americans lose. There's a source of national pride for you!

Recently, at a general staff-and-management meeting at my company, a co-worker expressed concerns about a new benefits package we were being offered, and stated matter-of-factly that she was afraid it would be some "American-style" system. There was one of those pauses, while we all remembered that our newly arrived CEO is from Chicago. Welcome to the country!

It's a given that "American-style" = evil, not sensitive to people's needs, profit-oriented, serving The Man. That kind of attitude is as much a part of the Canadian Experience as winter and Hockey Night in Canada (with or without Dolores Claman's theme music). (And let's not even start on the topic of electing someone who believes in the Word of God!)

But we forget something very important here. While we vilify, or at least hold in suspicion bordering on contempt, US military power and its attitude of being "the world's policeman", the freedoms we have enjoyed in this country have been largely due to the fact that we've had this cop on our street corner. While we were experimenting with anything from Medicare to state-run TV to minority rights and even sheltering draft dodgers, we were able to do so in the knowledge that Uncle Sam could and would come to our aid if anything happened. While some might argue that our best and brightest were getting killed in Europe while the US dithered over whether to join WW2 on that front, one could also argue that they provided the "fresh legs off the bench" that we needed to put an end to the Axis once and for all. During the Cold War, what exactly prevented the USSR from reaching across the Arctic Ocean and helping itself to our resources, land and people? The fact that the USA has this PHENOMENAL "NIMBY" complex. And when we want to sell our manufactured goods, where do we go?

But when a gang of terrorists wiped out almost 3000 people in one go -- affecting millions of people not just in NYC but even in Canada, a common attitude was that "they brought it on themselves"; there was a rush to try to "understand" the terrorists while we fell all over ourselves trying to prove that the terrorists' culture was not responsible for it. We even harbor the rock-dwelling lintbrains who claim that it was all a setup.

So while 9/11 is a date on which Americans will remember -- or contemplate -- what happened that day, it's a good time for us outside the country to remember that the US often takes the bullet - so we don't have to.

*The St-Louis was a ship, which wandered the world for several months in 1936, carrying a load of Jews, escaping Nazi Germany. It was turned away from numerous countries, and one of those countries was Canada. Prime Minister Mackenzie King declared "none is too many", and an immigration official stated there was no way any country could open its arms wide enough to accept 800,000 Jews. The Christian clergy, alas, was on-side with the government. The St-Louis eventually returned to Germany, and most of the refugees on-board wound up in the Nazi death camps. In 2001, a group of Protestant leaders from across the country got together in Ottawa with Jewish leaders and some survivors of the St-Louis, and they spent a weekend (or possibly longer, I'm not sure) in a time of prayer, forgiveness and reconciliation. In May 2008, just before Prime Minister Harper issued an apology for the Komagata Maru incident, the federal government announced an apology and gestures of reparation.

He comes through again!

As we've mentioned in so many posts, both here and at my Convenient Truth blog, the story of The Lord's Rain has been one of God's provision. He has intended for this project to happen from the get-go, and even at times when the world might say it couldn't happen, He's done something to prove the world wrong.

Some years ago, the Lord told me I was not to have anything to do with gambling -- and that included receiving money from gaming revenue. I'll go into the minutiae of that in another post, but for now, let's just say that gambling is an all-you-can-eat buffet of Things That Offend God -- lust, greed, laziness and the absence of faith represented by putting more trust in the turn of a card than in God to provide our needs. As for the revenue, because gambling is an addiction, the proceeds can hardly be said to have been given willingly to a church or other organization. It's been taken, and in many ways, the whole system profits from human misery.

Kenneth Copeland put it quite finely when he said that gambling cannot be ordained by God, because gambling involves losing, and God would never ordain something where somebody loses.

A couple of years ago, a particular church supported the work I was doing on the Downtown East Side. One day, I looked at the cheque and did a double-take. It was written on the church's "gaming revenue account". I told the church as politely as I could that I was not allowed to accept that money and I laid out my reasons. They piously declared they would respect my wishes.

Then one of my helpers -- who's still associated with that same church -- started receiving money to purchase food for Gospel Mission and our Saturday night services in particular. I had my suspicions about the source of the money but I have to confess, I did nothing out of fear of a variety of things. Finally -- a couple of months ago -- the Lord got in my face about it, so I swallowed hard and told my helper that if the money was, indeed, from gaming revenue, he would have to tell the church, thanks-but-no-thanks.

Why did I swallow hard? Because the enemy -- the world -- was nattering at me that I was putting the Mission in jeopardy ... that we were already having financial struggles, so I shouldn't blow off a source of income like that ... but I declared -- and did so in an email to our supporters -- that God would provide.

Immediately, someone else stepped forward and said she'd re-direct her tithe to pay for the groceries. There was a period when things looked a bit bleak -- darkest before the dawn, as they say -- and then donations started coming in: big ones and small ones, as God tapped people on the shoulder to help.

And this happens as we get an object lesson in how dangerous it is to rely on gaming money. The BC government is 'reviewing' its gaming grant programs. This morning's Vancouver Sun reports that a total of $77 million will be shed from the pot, meaning organizations -- groups that do some big things for their communities -- will have to make do with less.

I thank God that He warned us not to accept that money and that we heeded the warning; but I say that not out of smugness or self-righteousness: we could very easily have fallen out of faith and continued receiving the gaming revenue and even applied for a grant of our own. I pray that the Lord will help meet the needs of those organizations that are struggling and even that they, too, will turn to Him to be their Provider. He did it for us - He can do it for them, and the thing I've learned from The Lord's Rain is that you only have to ask.

One further note: the amount the province has set aside for grants out of gaming revenue is $139 million. The BC Lottery Corporation website states the government received almost $1.1 billion last year. You do the math.

The Greenway - and the unintended consequence

For all my rhapsodizing in the previous post about the benefit of the Olympics on this area, there's an unintended consequence to the current work. It's isolated the alley across from us and made it into a congregating point for the drug activity. Police do come through there on foot, but not having motor vehicle access on the west side makes it too easy to escape on foot. We'll have a lot of "catch-up" to play, once the street work is finished and the alley is back open: the longer the work takes, the harder the job will be.

"Paranoia runs deep ..."

The latest paranoia-mongering is connected to the talk of mass compulsory vaccinations against H1N1 virus. A street protest claimed the first to be innoculated against the flu would be pregnant women, native Indians and children in an obvious conspiracy to wipe out the detritus of society. "Genocide," the protesters call it.

Right - an attempt to prevent people from catching a disease is obviously genocide.

I'd love to hear people who throw words like that around try to explain their definition to the Jews, Armenians and Tutsis.

On the other hand, I have serious problems with a mass effort to inject something into people against their will - but I wouldn't want to be part of the conspiracy theory going on there. I'd be more likely to consider whether something like this spoken if in the end times prophecies. But more to the point, by His stripes I am healed and by His Blood, I'm protected from H1N1 - just as I've been protected from any of the communicable diseases on the DTES (praise Him!)

And that's something we should all remember.

The Lord's Rain - The Olympics & Another Milestone

It's fashionable around the Downtown East Side to vilify the Olympics. It's kind of a "principle" thing: anything new and different that happens in the area -- especially if it's done by any level of government -- is automatically "all because of the Olympics" and therefore Not To Be Trusted.

(Can somebody please 'splain to me what the point of anti-Olympics protesters is? They're not going to stop the games from happening, or stop several million people from having a good time -- and I don't think one homeless person has been housed as a result of the protests. The dark sense of oppression that comes off their actions and their posters with images of dark-hooded, masked demons and slogans like "Riot 2010" is far more threatening than any increased police presence. It reminds me that freedom of expression is a precious commodity, which millions of people have laid down their lives to defend over the centuries, and -- like anything precious -- open to abuse.)

But God ...

I love that expression of Jon Boyd's, from Westpointe Christian Centre. Something looks a certain way to The World, but God says it shall be different.

The World has its way of looking at The Olympics and the Downtown East Side, But God says, Not so fast.

1 -- I mentioned in a previous posting that vision I had of the Carrall Street Greenway -- complete and beautiful and welcoming -- and our little Mission, sitting there in the midst of it. That's a "pre-legacy" of the Olympics, right there. Why shouldn't our area look nicer? If the focus of the world's attention has made us take a hard look at the Downtown East Side and its issues, there's another legacy -- and just as lasting a legacy as the Canada Line, really.

2 -- Gospel Mission stands to gain, financially, from the Olympics. I've just been hired as PA announcer for the Canada Cup Women's Hockey Championship next week. It's a pre-Olympic event, and there's a possibility I'll be hired for The Show in February, as well. I tithe. Need I say more?

3 -- A milestone we reached this past Saturday is also Olympics related, and in a most wonderful way. When Joe Trepanier (who used to preach Saturday nights at Gospel Mission, and his leaving coincided with my showing up on the doorstep) took his shower, I looked at the little ongoing record we keep in a notebook and realized that the running total through the top of the page was 566. Then I started counting the tick marks down the page, and Joe's was the 33rd.

566 + 33 = 599. One more to a milestone.

And around 9:15, that "one more" walked in.

He's a fellow I'd seen several months before, about my age (50ish), with a young man in tow this time. And they both wanted showers.

In my mind, I flashed on the night Gordie Howe scored his 600th career goal in the NHL, and CBC, with the elementary 1960s-vintage technology, had prepared a special graphic: "600", flashing over the close-up of Gordie. This now played in my head as I told the pair they were #600 and #601.

So the honour goes to William Van Noord and his son, Jesse. I gave each of them a Bible with their names in it and the date and all that stuff. An impromptu ceremony, to be sure, and I think they were a little nonplussed by it all.

Now ... The Rest Of The Story.

Jesse Van Noord had just arrived from Ann Arbor, Michigan, about a week before. The pair are now living in a camper beside a job site, where they're installing cabinetry. William had, apparently, gotten the job and brought his son out to work with him.

The job was evidently something welcome for William, and I, for one, would welcome anything my son and I could do together, so there's a double blessing right there. I don't know -- nor would I speculate -- what the circumstances were that led to William living in Vancouver and Jesse in Ann Arbor, but here they were, together again. And since you can imagine the privations of having two grown men living in a camper, so it was a blessing to us that William had remembered The Lord's Rain when it came time to shower-up.

And where are they installing cabinets? Olympic Village.

So are the Olympics a blessing or a curse? Depends on how you look at it, doesn't it? But being one who believes that if you obsess on the demon behind the bush you'll miss the ram in the bush, I'm leaning towards the "blessing" side.

Candy (cont'd)

Some photos are coming in of Candy -- along with a clarification. First, a classic photo of Candy -- classic in that she's with a baby or other small human, in this case Eve, with her daddy, Sharveen (Claudia, Eve's mom, sent this one in). Heather noted that Candy really rediscovered her childhood through Christ -- and, by extension, through Heather's kids. Relating to kids was something Candy did particularly well.

Here's her birthday -- her natural birthday, I should point out. Candy celebrated her "re-birthday" too -- the date of her becoming Born Again in Christ. It's a significant date for many people, especially when they want to re-affirm 2 Cor. 5:17 ("if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature ...."), and I'm sure Candy used that as a conversation opener more than once ("How old are you?" "Five.").

Mind you, Candy would probably also tell you it's a good way to double-up on the cake.

She stopped wearing the head-scarf (right) a couple of months ago: the front of her head had been shaved for surgery, but her hair grew back up front as it got longer at the back.

Cal wrote in with a clarification of Candy's testimony, to wit:

I think Candy came to our doorstep during the day, according to Heather, 1-1:30pm, but stayed the night, actually for several weeks... Our version of what the gunmen were after was drug money (they came to her place at night and she hid till after noon before feeling safe to make it to our place) but Candy didn't have any...

Keep the pictures and memories coming ...

Dharm Makwana, a reporter with 24 Hours, saw the blog and called to find out more. He's interested in seeing what people come forward with recollections of Candy's ministering to them on SkyTrain (or transit in general).

Candy

My friend Candy died this morning.

There was a moment, around 10 past 1 this morning (nearly 8 hours before she finally breathed her last), when I realized, "my God, this is it" ... turning back to the bed to say goodbye one last time. Like the late Larry Norman in his last week a year ago, it was party time in the hospice room when Amelia and I arrived. Some techno-music was blasting away on the stereo (apparently, Cal's and Heather's daughters believed it was a significant "totally Candy" song), and we all knew that everything that could be said had been said, and as she was leaving this chapter of Eternity with no regrets, we were letting her go with no regrets.

Just last Wednesday, Amelia and I had wheeled her out into the garden at St Michael's hospice in Burnaby. She couldn't talk, but her grip on our hands was tight, and she could still crack a smile and manipulate one eyebrow. So we sat there, reading the Bible, singing worship songs, and breathing in the fresh air of the garden and looking at the flowers. Heather joined us and we spent this beautiful evening -- the 4 of us -- chatting and praying and loving our friend.

Now, here we were, the time closing in on midnight, watching our friend. She was already in the arms of Jesus ... breathing on her own, but irreversibly asleep and gradually growing colder from the extremities inward ... already gone, and "they" were just turning out the lights. But for a selfish instant, as I bent over her to kiss her forehead, I realized that this was It: the last time I'd see her alive ... and that that raucous laugh, her whoops of joy, her shouts of "Hallelujah!" and her sudden, unprovoked utterance, "thank you, Jesus!" would not be heard again at Westpointe.

Who was I kidding? They hadn't been heard in about 2 months, since just before she had yet another seizure and was bunged into Burnaby General Hospital to wait for a palliative bed ... and then space in the hospice. But saying that last goodbye was like hearing the cell door clang shut ... at least, it was to me.

I remember first meeting her. Who could forget first meeting Candy? I'd decided to stop driving past Westpointe and actually go in ... and there she was, this 50-something woman with ever-changing hair colour and a demeanour closer to an 8-year-old ... utterly delighting in praising the Lord, serving the Lord, and testifying about the Lord. Early on, I learned that she'd been a drug addict ... hooked on heroin for the most part ... abandoned by her family and raised by bikers in Montreal from age 11. And saved by Jesus when she was about 53, and aside from letting out a loud whoop if she saw or heard a Harley-Davidson go by (she had no time or patience for "rice rockets" -- Japanese motorbikes -- especially the ones that tried to masquerade as Harleys) ... but that was pretty much the only link with her past that she maintained ...

I asked her early on if she'd give her testimony at Gospel Mission. "No way, man," she said. "I'm never going back down there!" She was afraid she'd fall ... or run into someone she knew. I told her the invitation would always be open, and then -- almost a year ago now -- Nathan Weber -- Pastor Cal's son -- spoke a prophecy over her that she would return to the DTES and give her testimony.

About four months ago, she did just that. Heather -- Cal's wife -- called to ask if they could come down. They sat at the back (and no, Candy didn't meet anyone she knew) and finally, I asked if she'd come up and share her experience with the others. A very nervous Candy stepped forward and took the mike; and after almost drying solid (and if you knew Candy, you'd understand how rare an occurence that would be!), she started telling her story.

She told of the bikers and the drugs and the abandonment as a child. She told of living on the streets and hanging out on Granville Mall, which was the "heroin district" -- compared with the "crack district" on the DTES. She told of Heather and Cal ministering to her and preaching Jesus. And she told of the night two hoods burst into her dingy apartment and stuck a gun to her head.

"They were looking for a guy and thought I knew him and knew where he was," she said. "I didn't, but they didn't believe me. One of the guys cocked the gun and I said, 'Jesus, if You get me out of this, I'll give my life to You.'"

He pulled the trigger.

The gun jammed.

Twice.

The hoods ran off, and Candy was out the door as soon as it was safe. To hear her tell it, her feet hardly touched ground as she raced over to Cal and Heather's and - even though it was very late at night - received Jesus at last.

Some might question whether we can make a deal with God like that: promise to serve Him if He gets you out of a jam. But God knows our hearts -- whether we genuinely have made a commitment or whether we're just trying to say anything to get out of a pickle. He knew Candy's. She became the fiercest, loudest, most joyful enemy of the enemy you ever saw. Living is the best revenge, and she took her revenge on the devil for all those locust-devoured years by living for Jesus and doing her touchdown dance on Satan's face at every opportunity.

She was already ravaged by Hepatitis-C, acquired through intravenous drug use, and she had good days and bad days, but she never let on. Even when the radiation and chemotherapy were draining her and the steroids were making her puff up like that marshmallow guy she rarely gave in to the pain and discomfort. And she wouldn't let us feel sorry for her.

There are so many images of Candy. Seeing her unbridled delight when my wife Amelia was baptized. I'll let Amelia tell the story herself if she wants, but the picture is here ......

One that I never saw, but she described it to me, was how she would sit on the floor of SkyTrain as it travelled over SkyBridge -- the bridge over the Fraser River between New Westminster and Surrey -- because she was to deathly afraid of heights. She'd take SkyTrain practically anywhere -- usually to Surrey -- and talk to people, tell them about Jesus, and pray for them. Pastor Jon Boyd said last night that people actually would seek her out, to get more prayer.

Then there was the time when she was clearly in pain one Sunday morning. A friend of ours came in and sat beside Amelia and me ... terribly despondent ... and put her head in her hands. Candy came over and sat in the row in front, turned around, laid a hand on our friend's shoulders and started praying for her. I remembered that scene -- someone in pain, reaching out to pray for someone else -- when I was in hospital in February: get your head out of yourself, I told myself then, and find someone else to pray for.

Who knows what seeds Candy has sown in her brief but intense walk with God? The good farmer plants the seed, then moves on to a new furrow. He doesn't stand over it and watch it come up. Sometimes, he's blessed to see the finished product when it's ready for harvest.

Here's another memory: just before Amelia's and my wedding, Jon and I were in the prayer room at Westpointe. He went out. I followed him a couple of minutes later, suddenly paranoid that Amelia and the others wouldn't think to look for me in the prayer room to tell me they were ready and so they'd be waiting out in the fellowship hall or (worse) start without me. A strange, First Night At The Theatre hush sat over the church as I sat down next to dad. Suddenly, a loud "WHOOOOO!" came from a few rows back. And there ended the hush.

Even when you're reading the Word and walking in the Word and trying to live the Word, you still get brought up short by situations like Candy's. Why would God let her drag through 40 years of drugs and bikers and street life then save her in spectacular fashion, turn her loose on an unsuspecting world of sinners and then let her contract brain cancer and die? Where's the justice in that?

Sunday morning at Westpointe, the Lord started giving an answer. He told me that what's important is that Candy ran her race, and ran it hard and well since the day she leapt off the wrong track she'd been on and got onto the right track.

But why would He take her? I believe it's because we needed to see a woman who could face adversity and refuse to curse God and die. We needed to see the power of redemption and renewal in Christ -- and Candy's was an electrifying testimony.

We needed to see someone totally uninhibited when it came to witnessing Christ and unconditional in her commitment. We needed to see that, no matter who we are and what we think we're supposed to be doing, God has the timetable in His hands and we can't assume we have any more or less time than any others. What we choose to do with that time is what's important.

And possibly above all, we needed to see -- while so many of us are at an age when we can understand it -- what it looks like for someone to face the end of this life fearlessly, in the confidence of their relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Candy defanged death: it has no sting, it shall have no dominion.

May we all have that same confidence when it comes our turn.