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It’s been an astonishing achievement. Stephen Sutton, the terminally ill 19 year old who’s captured the imagination of people the across the country with his initiative and courage, has this week seen his appeal for a teenage cancer charity pass £3 million.

The project was first in the bucket-list he made last year of 46 things he wanted to do before he died, everything from skydiving to hugging a very large animal. He’d hoped for £10,000, but the money has kept rolling in - from celebrity comedians and footballers tweeting their support, to huge numbers of admirers backing his events or just sending the few pounds they can afford.

The money will be welcome, if not overwhelming, for the small charity on the receiving end, and the appeal has already raised awareness of the need of one of the many groups of young sufferers who could be easily overlooked in the struggle for scarce resources. Beneath this heart-warming story, there’s real tragedy.

Some disturbing challenges also lurk here. In a short video, Stephen said that he’d come to see his illness as ‘a kind of blessing.’ It had taught him ‘not to take things for granted.’ Echoes for me here of the words of the Psalmist: ‘Teach us how short our life is, so that we may become wise.’

And wisdom for this remarkable young man who knows that his days are numbered prompted him to set about doing something.

‘Other people have loads of time, but might not have the motivation,’ he said. ‘They can’t really give me their time. What I can try to do is give them my motivation.’ Which he appears to have succeeded in very impressively.

Whatever you’ve been given, however much, however little, you must get on with using it, Jesus told his followers, because you never know how long it will last. Not everyone has opportunity for a bucket list.

A friend of mine was told out of the blue that he might have only three weeks to live: he was 40. He had more than enough to do making practical arrangements for his wife and young children, without trying to fulfil any long-held dreams. But there was one thing, he said; a biography of someone he greatly admired had just been published: breaking the habit of a lifetime, he’d decided not to wait for the paperback edition.

He had a deep faith, that because of the resurrection of Jesus death wasn’t the end. That didn’t make his pain at losing what might have been any easier to bear. But he insisted: the value of a life is not in its length, it’s what you do with it.

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