Day 62: Hilda Churchill 108

DAY 62

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK NINE: FRIDAY 15 MAY 2020

Hilda Churchill, 108

“Hilda Churchill survived the Great War, the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that claimed her sister, the Great Depression and World War II, but eight days before her 109^th birthday she became Britain’s oldest recorded victim of the coronavirus … She tested positive for the virus only the night before.” Those We’ve Lost: Faces from the Coronavirus Pandemic, news item 2 April 2020

Psalm 90:12 invites us to pray a prayer: “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Neither Hilda nor her sister were able to ‘count’ their days.  So how do we ‘number’ our days,’ as though we could count them and know exactly how many we have left?  

I like the way The Message translates this verse: “Oh! Teach us to live well! Teach us to live wisely and well!” Here’s the thing: we can’t know our days, but God does know them: “All the days ordained for me were written in your book, before one of them came to be,” Psalm 139:16. The omniscient, all-knowing God knows the number of our days without determining them so we can leave them in His hands and concentrate on ‘living well’ today. I have ‘numbered,’ counted or reckoned my days to be someone else’s responsibility, and therefore can focus on the second half of the petition in Psalm 90:12, seeking wisdom from God in my life.

There is a way to approach the unknown number of days in our lives, found in James 4:13-15:

“Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this city or that city,

spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life?

You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’” 

Here are my days numbered that will be on my grave marker:

Robert Gilmore Bayley 1942-

What comes after the dash is in God’s hands.

Reflective question: What do you plan to do with the time after the “dash” on your grave marker – what would you like it to contain? Ask the Lord to guide you in your answer.

Reflective Scripture: Proverbs 10:27 – “The fear of the Lord adds length to life …”

Reflective hymn:

“I Am Thine, O Lord” – Fanny Crosby (1820-1915)

I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice, and it told Thy love to me.

But I long to rise in the arms of faith and be closer drawn to Thee.