Here One Minute...Gone The Next!

Well I stopped by to see my parents after work today. I was only going to stay a few minutes because Crystal, Grace, and I bought tickets to see Tim Hawkins at a nearby church and wanted to get there early. Not ten minutes into my visit, the main topic of conversation being the weather, the wind picked up and as we were looking outside we saw a mobile homes roof lift off two houses down from us! It wasn't the main roof but one of those additions. The roof just up and flew away! My dad said that no one was home, they were away. I knew that roof had to have hit someone else's mobile home so I went to look. Sure enough it had crashed into a home two houses down. No one was home; the damage was minor. Then I noticed the AC running in the home that just lost its roof. I knocked loudly on the door and sure enough an ederly lady opened the door. She was on oxygen; a sight that instantly reminded me of Peggy, my mother-in-law. I ask her if she was O.K. and if there was any damage in the main structure of her home. she said no and she was fine. She said her husband was at the VA Hospital though and would not be home until late but that she called her daughter and she was leaving work. I didn't realize it at the time but she was in shock and didn't break down and start crying until her daughter arrived about an hour later. I started back for my parents but my conscience stopped me behind the house in between the one that lost its roof and my parent's. Neighbors of my parents, John and Dixie Miles are very active in a local Baptist church and Crystal and I had been over to their house to talk with them about joining it. I stopped as I was walking and Dixie said Hi to me out the window. I said, "Did you see what happened?" Anyway to make a long story short I went back to check on the lady again...Dixie came out and we started picking things up and bring them in to the main house so they would not get rained on. Dixie said she had some tarps because her husband John was a member of the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Team.

After tarping the home I stopped to say goodbye. Her daughter was there by now. I had noticed a Bible and some crosses on the wall and a organ with a hymnal on it. It appeared that she had some church background. I was in a hurry to go and said to the daughter, "I notice your cross necklace and see the Bibles in the house. It seems that you know of God do you know where you will be spending eternity? After all this life is temporary and you never know-- (looking to what use to be a roof) -- what could happen or when we will leave here a stand before God. So where are you both are going to wind up when you leave here?"

They said, "Heaven."

I asked why they would be going to Heaven. They both answered that Jesus was their Lord and Savior. I was soaked to the bone and covered with dirt and wanted to go home my wife was already calling me wanting to know what I was doing and why was I late. I told them that I just wanted to make sure that they knew where they were going to spend eternity before I left because things here were very temporal and that the only way to heaven is by trusting in Christ alone. They thanked me again for my help and I left.