How Does This Happen?

Here's one of the more morbid stories that I've heard in a while...


Lady Lies Dead For More Than 35 Years

Hedviga Golik died years before I was born, and nobody discovered her dead body until now? Nobody noticed? How does something like that happen?

I've read stories about people laying around in an apartment for a couple of weeks before they've been discovered, but 35 years? Unbelievable.

I wonder where her family was, or if she was all alone. Her neighbors said that they thought she was going to travel abroad. It's really sad that nobody knew or cared about her enough to even wonder... they just forgot about her until she was found.

What I also found sad was that the neighbors almost immediately started bickering about who owned the apartment.

Fortunately, there is someone that never forgot about her. Someone that will never forget about us. God cares about her, and always has, for the 35 years that her body lay still in the shut up apartment, and for whatever lonely years of her life were spent by herself before she died.

The Fragility Of Life

Good news, it looks like my daughter's friend/husband's friend's daughter is going to be okay. Her kidneys did stop working, but today they installed a catheter so she can do dialysis. She might be in the hospital for up to 2 weeks, but it's certainly better than the alternative.

This day has shown me how fragile this existence we call life is. One day your daughter's friend is just a normal 7 year old, the next day she has bloody diarrhea, and a week later you get a call at 6:40 in the morning with what sounds like you're going to need a miracle to ever see her again. We just take it for granted that tomorrow will come... that your child will grow up and get married someday (if the rapture doesn't happen first)... that when we visit friends and relatives that live far away, they'll be okay and we'll see them a year or two later when we return.

Fortunately, this little girl will probably be okay. But it just makes me think about how no tomorrow is ever guaranteed. How everything can fall apart in one moment.

My cousin died of cancer when he was 7. One day he was a playful little 5 year old boy, and then he was limping. Turned out to be cancer. We thought that he was going to be in remission and was going to be healthy enough for a transplant, the next thing you know, he was gone.

Life Is Short

Since I'm not playing Warcraft any more, I've been spending more time on Pogo. I joined a league and am playing in some tournaments in the league. It's a lot of fun.

Well tonight, I played against a lady called Bingomama (with some numbers after her name). A little later that evening, she started chatting with another person on our league. He reported to us that two of her children, ages 4 and 5, died in a fire tonight. Also either her husband or ex-husband (I couldn't figure out which) died in the same fire.

So hug your babies (if you have any) or your honey (if you have one) a little bit tighter tonight. You never know how much time you have with them. Even more important, if you are unsure of where you will spend eternity, make sure you get that figured out. Don't put it off. You don't know if you have another day.

If you have loved ones that are not saved, talk to them as well. Life is short.

And please pray for Bingomama and her much-smaller family at this time.

Bridge Collapse In Minneapolis

If you keep up with the news, you might have already heard of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis over the Mississippi river. At least six people died... ABC has some pictures and information here.

There was no earthquake. It just happened. Bridges usually don't just collapse for no reason, but apparently, it did today. Now engineers may find a reason as they investigate, but there is no reason that jumps right out to the casual observer.

It just shows you how fragile life is. One day, you can wake up, go to work, and on the way home something like this happens. Perfectly healthy people, even professional athletes, sometimes have heart attacks right out of the blue. Your home can be robbed and during the robbery you can lose your life, or you could be hit by a drunk driver coming home from dinner some night.

Our lives are so fragile. Earlier this week, we lost four people in a helicopter collision in Arizona. Nobody could have predicted that. And nobody could have predicted this bridge collapse.

One day, it could be any day... it could be before I finish writing this... Jesus will be coming back for his people. He will come back for those of us who have repented of our sins and trusted him as our savior. Which doesn't mean that we don't still sin... we don't want to sin, and when we do, we feel bad about it.

Those that do not trust Jesus as their savior will be left behind to face God's judgement and wrath. Similarly, if we live our lives as we wish, and never repent of our sins and trust in Jesus, sudden destruction and wrath will come upon us eventually. It could come in the form of a heart attack, a freak stingray accident, or a bridge collapse. We just don't know. None of us know how many breaths we have left. Every second we get upon this Earth is a gift from God, and none of us are guaranteed another.

I pray for the families of those who were left behind in this bridge accident. I pray for the emergency workers who may still be out there trying to help. I pray for the entire community in Minneapolis, as I'm sure that this will effect them greatly. I hope that those who lost their lives had trusted Jesus as their savior, but whatever the outcome, it is too late for them to change it now.

As an aside note, I know that the Way of the Master Radio is based in Minnesota. I pray especially for all those that work at WOTM, and hope that none of them were hurt in the accident.

Heaven Has Two New People This Week

Our world has lost two wonderful people this week. Our loss, but Heaven's gain.

The first person, that I'm sure many people have heard about, is Ruth Graham, Billy Graham's wife. She went into a coma yesterday, and died earlier this afternoon. I really didn't know much about her, but I'm sure that being married to a famous minister could not be easy. They were married for 67 years, you have to give anybody credit nowadays for being married that long.

She was born in China on June 10, 1920, to two American missionaries. As a girl, she dreamed of becoming a missionary... but instead she married the evangelist Billy Graham. She had five children, wrote or co-authored 14 books, and founded the Ruth and Billy Graham Children's Health Center.

The other person that the world lost in the last week was a little 7 year old girl named Rachel Hanson. You can read about her at the Caring Bridge web site.

Rachel was born in April 2007 (I'm guessing) in Minnesota. She contraced Ewing's Sarcoma (a form of cancer) when she was 2 years old. For five years she bravely fought to get better. In the end, she did get better, just not in the way that anybody hoped. She lost her earthly battle with cancer in the morning on June 8, 2007.

Today was her funeral/celebration of life. I don't live anywhere near Minnesota, but I wore pink, her favorite color, for her today.

I never met either of them. I learned about Rachel through a prayer thread for her when she was about 3. My family has prayed for her almost every day, and I've followed her story through her mom's journals. Losing her was like losing a friend. She may not be as famous as Ruth Graham, but she's famous in my eyes.

If anybody is reading, please pray for their families. They both were saved Christians, and I believe that someday they will reunite with their families... but even with the promise of seeing a loved one again, I'm sure that they will be missed. Losing a loved one is always hard.