Last night I was checking out our new Dish Network system flipping through channels when I saw a picture on the screen. It was the face of a man who looked eerily like a boy I used to play baseball with and hung out with at school. When I saw it, there was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. He wasn't a contestant on a game show, he wasn't an actor on a TV show, but he was the subject of that evening's newscast.
He was picked up for a 1992 home invasion and rape. His sampling of DNA taken in August of 2007 was identified as the DNA of one of the men who raped a women in her home 16 years ago. You see 1992 was the year we graduated. It was supposed to be the year our paths as High Schoolers were laid out before us and we could choose how we wanted to live our lives. I can't help but think about how that summer in August of 1992, as I was preparing for my first year of college, my old friend was choosing a path of destruction. He probably thought after 16 years he'd never get caught. I wonder if he had nightmares about that evening.
When I saw the picture and heard the story, I was reminded of Tim's message this past Sunday about prayer. How God brings things to our minds, puts people in our paths, brings to remembrance people in our past...not by some strange coincidence, but for a reason. Today I'm thinking of my old baseball buddy and elementary school friend, the woman and family who were dealt a huge blow in the summer of 1992. Praying that somehow through this, God might capture his heart and set him free from the bondage of sin and destruction he's living with.
Lesson: remember to pray for those God lays before your path.
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