This week I was reminded, yet again, how fragile and short life really is.\u00c2\u00a0 On Friday morning, I received a call about a friend.\u00c2\u00a0 I was told that my buddy was hit by a car the night before and was in the ICU at\u00c2\u00a0an area hospital.\u00c2\u00a0 I rushed down to the floor and as I turned the corner to go to the waiting room, I saw a scene that could only be described by watching a movie.\u00c2\u00a0 Standing there were 20-30 young twenty-year olds mourning their friend.\u00c2\u00a0 As I peered through the crowd I noticed the mother and went to talk with her.<\/p>\n
As time progressed that day, it became apparent that we were in for an emotional and heart-wrenching day.\u00c2\u00a0 After battling for a little over 24 hours, my buddy had sustained too serious of injuries and left this world for the next.\u00c2\u00a0 It has been an agonizing four days as I have seen a mother and father lose their child, a sister and brother lose their oldest sibling, and young people lose a second friend in as many days.<\/p>\n
Yet even though these four days\u00c2\u00a0have been physcially, emotionally and relationally exhausting, my spirit is still up becuase there is one truth that permeates through this story.\u00c2\u00a0 My friend knew the saving power and love of Jesus Christ.\u00c2\u00a0 He had given his life to Christ and now he is suffering from no more injuries, no more pain, no more struggles with sin, no more need for the traps of this world.\u00c2\u00a0 He is free and worshipping Christ, as I write this.<\/p>\n
Whenever anyone, especially a 21 year-old, passes away, it should stand as a reminder that life is fleeting and extremely short.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t have time to wait until we are ready to accept Christ.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t have time, as Christ-followers, to wait to tell others the Gospel.\u00c2\u00a0 The time is now.\u00c2\u00a0 The place is here.\u00c2\u00a0 May we live for Him today and forever.<\/p>\n
Ernest<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week I was reminded, yet again, how fragile and short life really is.\u00c2\u00a0 On Friday morning, I received a call about a friend.\u00c2\u00a0 I was told that my buddy was hit by a car the night before and was in the ICU at\u00c2\u00a0an area hospital.\u00c2\u00a0 I rushed down to the floor and as I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ernestsmith.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ernestsmith.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ernestsmith.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ernestsmith.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ernestsmith.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.ernestsmith.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ernestsmith.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ernestsmith.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ernestsmith.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}