One Brief Moment

The tragedy I wrote about yesterday has been on my mind and I can't seem to let it go. As I prayed this morning for Michelle's sister I started crying. I couldn't help but think about all the lives that were changed in just one brief moment. I thought about a man sitting somewhere at this precise moment mourning the death of his daughter and his wife. What he must being going through! I thought about a young man in a hospital mourning the loss of his mother and his little sister. Oh, the pain he must be feeling.

Then I thought about the man that caused all of this. What was he feeling? I can only imagine what I would be feeling if I had been the cause of such a horrific tragedy. In one brief moment of road rage his life became forever connected with a family that their only crime was driving slower than what he wanted them to. What was he going through in his life that would make him so angry that he would allow that anger to control him and allow him to take his anger out on innocent people? He had to have some issues to show such anger with his wife and four small kids in the car.

How many of us are guilty of getting angry because someone is driving slow and we have somewhere we want to be? Or angry because someone cut us off in traffic? I am guilty! Is where we are going so important that in one brief moment-even if we are not meaning to- we could be guilty of what this man is? Some of you are saying, I would never get that angry that I would cause such a thing, but it doesn't always have to be road rage that has to cause an accident. Just one brief moment of frustration can forever change your life.

We hear of road rage all the time in the news, but this is the first time it has come this close to home for me. I don't know Michelle's sister Jennifer, but I know Michelle, and when one of my friend’s family members hurts, I hurt.

Take this as a lesson, friends. No place we are going is important enough to change you life forever.