A Scary Reminder of How Quickly Life Can Change

This morning at 8:30am life changed forever for Sue and Charlie. They live two houses down from me. I take Charlie to school every morning. I look at him as I do the other kids on the street as one of my adopted kiddos. So it was a shock when my neighbor knocked on my door at 8:45am this morning to tell me that their house was on fire. It took 20 minutes for the fire trucks to get there. The roof is almost completely gone. One side of the house looks really bad and I guess the back is even worse. They do not know yet what started it. It just breaks my heart to watch what this family is going through. Charlie just broke his ankle on saturday at a basketball game and now this. The trials of life are so hard. The challenges we all face alter each of us and I know Charlie and Sue will get through this-it just seems like as I get older those trials sure do get bigger and bigger. I have watched kids lose parents, parents lose kids. I have seen divorce, abuse, drug addiction, and suicide. I have seen one poor choice change not only one life, but all of the lives around him forever.

Don't get me wrong, I have hope. I have faith. I am so grateful to have a knowledge of God, our Heavenly Father. I know that I need to be more faithful. I need to have more hope. I need to trust in the Lord more. I just wonder what the bigger picture is. I know that we must know pain to know joy, but it seems that lately there has been a lot more pain than joy in a lot of people's lives.

I am grateful to my Heavenly Father for all of the blessings He gives me each day. I need to stop and count them today and take a moment to pray extra hard for this family to receive blessings. Life does go on, but when we look out for one another it sure makes life a lot sweeter and a lot easier to bear when you have a shoulder to lean on.