Challenge Literature Fellowship - AfricaTips for Life
By Alan Bailey
ALMOST every new day brings us a reminder that our hold on life is very tenuous. The newspapers usually have more names in the death notices than in the births column. We hear of friends or relatives battling with disease and people being killed in accidents, wars and natural disasters.
AN APPOINTMENT IN THE BOOK
We won’t have it written in our diary, but we can be sure that one day our life here will end. As God’s Word says, “It is appointed to man once to die.”
By Alan Bailey
It’s one of the most disturbing elements of modern life. Even people who seem to have good prospects and sympathetic relatives and friends nevertheless end their lives. The grief over a death seems to be worsened by the way it occurred.
THE END OF HOPE
As a rule, it isn’t poverty and hardship that makes people take their own lives. All too often, it is those with good homes, safe environments and seemingly no reason to despair. But we know that depression hits all kinds of people for a range of reasons. But at the bottom, there is the loss of hope. Life is too hard to cope with and ending it is a way out. We are told that the depressed don’t consider what their loved ones will feel; they are too occupied with their own thoughts. All so sad.Continue reading
Tips for Life
by Alan Bailey
How scary is that! I saw it on television just the other day. A young couple suspended over a huge ravine in New Zealand, meant to be experiencing a bungy jump—but something was going very wrong.
The two were supposed to be seated, held by a kind of harness. But the girl’s had broken and she was barely hanging on. Her boyfriend grasped a piece of the gear hoping to prevent her from falling. Down below, a long, long, way was a river bed. After what seemed an age the operators pulled them back to safety. The lady was too traumatised to speak.
Maybe it sounds a bit far-fetched, but isn’t this where we all are—hanging by a thin thread? I mean, our lives are not bullet-proof; there is no guarantee that we are safe and secure.
by Andrew Lansdown
A fortnight ago I conducted a funeral for a friend. It was a graveside service and I stood at a lectern at the head of the coffin in which my friend’s body lay. The coffin rested on three chromed bars bridging the two-metre drop of the grave.
At the conclusion of the service, I spoke the words of committal: “Forasmuch as it has pleased almighty God in His great mercy to take out of this world the soul of our dear brother … we therefore commit his body to the elements, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust …” As I spoke these words, the six pallbearers lowered the coffin into the grave and out of sight.
Tips for Life
by Alan Bailey
Though this column is headed ‘Tips for Life’, we are faced by the fact that every day people die in the 100’s of thousands. It is strange that we can obtain so much help to live our lives but little help on how to die.
by Andrew Lansdown
Something heartbreaking happened to a family at Black Point one Easter.
Black Point is an isolated place, accessible only by four-wheel-drive, on the south coast of Western Australia, and the Stallard family travelled there to fish.
The parents, Ron and Debbie, lived in the south-west of the state, but their two sons, 25-year-old Paul and 19-year-old Andrew, lived in Perth. So the fishing trip was something of a family reunion, too.
But it all went terribly wrong that Easter Saturday while the family was fishing from the rocks.
Debbie slipped and fell into the sea, and a wave swept her out.
Do you ever think – “what if?” What if I had married my first love? What if I had pursued my dream to …? What if my parents hadn’t divorced? What if I hadn’t tried drugs/ fallen pregnant/had that car accident?Continue reading
Death is only a fearful thing
If you have to face it alone
But surrender yourself to God’s infinite love
And death will be a coming home.Continue reading