Fatal Distraction

It's Pulitzer Time, and the winner this year for feature writing is Gene Weingart who wrote an article about parents who accidentally leave their childern in the car and end up killing them. It happens about 15-20 times a year, and it happens to people from all walks of life. From doctors to gardners.

It is one of the best and most haunting articles, I've ever read. Here is one short excerpt from the piece.


I was that guy, before. I'd read the stories, and I'd go, 'What were those parents thinking?' "

Mikey Terry is a contractor from Maypearl, Tex., a big man with soft eyes. At the moment he realized what he'd done, he was in the cab of a truck and his 6-month-old daughter, Mika, was in a closed vehicle in the broiling Texas sun in a parking lot 40 miles away. So his frantic sprint to the car was conducted at 100 miles an hour in a 30-foot gooseneck trailer hauling thousands of pounds of lumber the size of telephone poles.

On that day in June 2005, Terry had been recently laid off, and he'd taken a day job building a wall in the auditorium of a Catholic church just outside of town. He'd remembered to drop his older daughter at day care, but as he was driving the baby to a different day care location, he got a call about a new permanent job. This really caught his attention. It was a fatal distraction.

Terry, 35, wasn't charged with a crime. His punishment has been more subtle.

The Terrys are Southern Baptists. Before Mika's death, Mikey Terry says, church used to be every Sunday, all day Sunday, morning Bible study through evening meal. He and his wife, Michele, don't go much anymore. It's too confusing, he says.

"I feel guilty about everyone in church talking about how blessed we all are. I don't feel blessed anymore. I feel I have been wronged by God. And that I have wronged God. And I don't know how to deal with that."

Four years have passed, but he still won't go near the Catholic church he'd been working at that day. As his daughter died outside, 

Read the whole thing.

God’s Love

The author of Basic Instinct and Showgirls writes:


Seven years ago, I sat down on a curb near my home, sobbing, and asked God to help me.

I had just had surgery for throat cancer. I still had a trache in my throat. I had been told that if I didn't stop smoking and drinking immediately, I'd die. I desperately didn't want to die. I adored my wife and children.

But I knew I couldn't stop. I'd started smoking when I was twelve and drinking when I was 14. I was now 57 years old.

I cried and begged God to help me . . . and He did. I hadn't prayed since I was a boy. I had made fun of God and those who loved God in my writings. And now, through my sobs, I heard myself asking God to help me . . . and from the moment I asked, He did.

I didn't at first understand why He did. I didn't deserve His help, I thought. I was unworthy. I ignore Him for forty years and then suddenly I ask Him to help me and He does? It took me some time to understand that God helped me because He loves me. Because even though we don't deserve God's love, God loves us – all of us.

It's an excellent testimony. And I challenge you to read the whole thing.

Hurricane Gustav

 
 
I don't usually advocate for prayer, but in this instance I'm not sure there is anything else we can do. 
 
I suppose I should ad: The reason I don't often advocate for prayer is because I think too many Christians use prayer as a cop-out. Telling someone you'll pray for them is lot easier than actually trying to help them with their problem. So Christians pray instead of doing.
 
However, with Hurricanes, um well, it's all in God's hands.