Cross Rhythms website editor Heather Bellamy is a regular contributor for the local Sentinel newspaper's weekly faith column, Yours Faithfully. Each week a different leader from the local faith communities write the column. Check out what Heather has been saying to the fine people of North Staffordshire.

One day death will touch us all. Yesterday I attended my Grandad-in-laws funeral. The day before I had just finished reading the biography of Carrie McDonnall who in 2004 suffered a terror attack in Iraq. At 26 years old she was shot 22 times and her husband died. Today, my Mother-in-law is currently fighting another fight against cancer, this time breast and ovarian cancer in her bones; it's the fifth time of it returning.

Dr. Martin Luther King once said "if you've got nothing worth dying for, then you've got nothing worth living for."

There are many people who inspire me, the four people mentioned above being some of them. There were 200 people at yesterdays funeral. George died at 92 and was just an ordinary man living an uneventful life. Yet at 92 when most of his contemporaries had already passed away, there were still 200 people wanting to come and pay their respects. He was a gentle person, who cared about others, even phoning a recently widowed friend to make sure she was ok, when he was in bed dying. He was someone who even in his 90's wanted to be around young people and one young man in his 20's shared the impact George had on his life. That's a life well lived! George showed me that you don't have to be great in the eyes of the world to be truly great.

My Mother-in-law is an awesome woman, who doesn't allow illness or cancer to define her, but shines with a zeal for life. Her eyes sparkle. As she says, even if you're going to die, you have to keep living until you're gone. Her focus is life, not death! She's full of energy and ideas for her future, giving to others and trusting God. She really shows me that in Jesus, we can overcome all things.

Reading Carrie's story gave me that awful pain in my throat when you want to bawl your eyes out. She and her husband loved the Arab nations and gave their short lives to helping displaced people. Carrie, a young widow, with fingers missing and scars on her body, is still full of love, forgiveness and the desire to carry on and give to others.

Jesus said, 'in this world you will have trouble'; in this life, we will all face difficulties, whether financial or in relationships or in our health and one day, however we came into this world and however we've lived our lives, we will all die. That doesn't have to fill us with despair or a 'party today cause tomorrow I die' attitude. After Jesus said 'in this world you will have trouble,' he went on to say, 'but take heart! I have overcome the world'. That overcoming is like a 92 year old man dying of cancer, phoning a widow; a woman who's body has been ravaged by cancer, looking beautiful as she shines with life and hope; a widow forgiving those who killed her husband; and a young black man leading a peaceful revolution against racism. It's an inner freedom from the difficulties of this world and a joy and a peace that passes all understanding. As Carrie said at the end of her book, 'may we live lives we will never regret'.