what mattered yesterday…

doesn’t seem so important today.

I just posted my blog about the beach today, Sunday, Oct 18, but it actually happened yesterday.  We just had a storm move through and lost internet.

I did sleep well last night.  But I awoke to a day that I wish had only been a nightmare. 

One of the families that joined us at the beach yesterday came with their five beautiful children; the youngest at around 2 years of age and the oldest at 16 years of age.  Four girls and a boy, five years old.  As I understand the story about 10 years ago, they buried another son, who died in a drowning accident. 

This morning around 7:15, the father, his oldest daughter, and his son were headed to church on their motorcycle; a common means of transportation in these parts.  I am not sure exactly what course of events transpired because I heard several retellings of it today, each of them mostly the same with only some slight variation, but the fact remains that the the motorcycle was impacted by a motorcycle going who knows how fast and tragedy struck the family for the second time.  The father received head trauma, a busted up shoulder and a torn up leg, the daughter busted up her knee and received various other less extensive injuries, and the little boy received head trauma, a possible broken neck, and a punctured lung.  They were all rushed to the hospital here on the Mission Center and trauma doctors and nurses were called in to help.  The father had some emergency surgery to patch him up, the daughter got a temporary fix for her leg and they put the little boy on a breathing machine.  The little boy didn’t survive. 

The family is now headed to the US to receive more extensive medical treatment and they will also lay another son to rest.  And then when the rush of everything begins to slow down, I imagine they will begin to truly grieve. 

Things like this don’t make sense.  They don’t seem fair,  But life rarely does; it rarely is.  So hold your loved ones tight.  Tell them how much they mean to you.  Forgive them of much.  Appreciate what you have.  Give what you can.  Trust in God.  Hope in His grace.  Cling to Him with all that you are. 

And pray for the Reinhards.  Its going to be a long road of recovery for them in so many ways.  I know they would appreciate your prayers.