Peoria Illinoisan

Last Tuesday I was reading the update on Peoria’s 8th murder in the parking lot of the Church of the Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It turned out to be suicide, and as I read the comments, I found one particularly touching. I don’t know if it was just the mood I was in at the moment, or the general feeling that our city is imploding, but I thought it too good to be buried in the comments section of the local updates section. Heck, I was already mad about the murder #7. I decided that I would reprint it, but before I did, I emailed the author to ask if what she wrote was true.

Her response: “Everything I wrote I saw, I did not hear the gunshot and just happened to see the first police car pull up and looked out like anyone naturally would.

So, yes I saw as they tried to revive him and the girl friend being taken away screaming, I watched as everything went from a bit of hope to hopeless…..he was gone. And as they covered his body in the sheets. Then a group of his family came screaming. From my bedroom window you could see everything lying in my bed and so I still saw as they took pics of his body and the corner came to pick the body up. It was just all very sad.”

Reprint of the Journal Star comment, with permission of the author:

Last night, I witnessed a very tragic and unfortunate incident. A young man and his girlfriend pulled their car into the church parking lot next door to my condo, the young man got out the car and shot himself in the head and took his own life. We are living in a time were people are struggling for there lives, they are stressed, overwhelmed, depressed these are…….hard times. People are turning to everything but GOD!

As I watched people outside screaming, and different ones trying to revive the young man, as they pulled the sheets over his body my heart became very heavy. I didn’t know him, but so many questions ran through my head, I wanted to understand so bad, what was he thinking? What was so horrible that caused him to give up the fight for his life, when God had not given up on him? Why did he feel like no one had the answer? As I mature, I’m learning that life is a journey and we don’t always understand where we are and why we are there, but we trust that the Master is holding us in his hands. We trust that God has the map to our life and knows the end results. Sometimes people loose that hope, and that is when they need to be reminded that they are loved and someone still cares, we are human.

I shared this story with the people I loved because you never know who you may come across one day and you never know why God puts people in your life, but stop to think if there just might be purpose.

Whether it be a mother, a father, sister, or brother. Or maybe it’s a wife, a husband or just a girlfriend or a boyfriend or even simply just a friend there is “Purpose in Relationship”. Make sure the ones you love, know you love them. When you say you love someone mean it, you never know whose heart you hold in your hands. Be careful of whose heart you break, you never know how powerful that key is. There is also responsibility in relationship, no matter what kind of relationship it might be. If it’s a ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on, a word of advise, or a prayer when they cross your mind, there is responsibility in relationship. I pray I’m playing my roll in any relationship God has blessed me with. I pray I am able to speak life into someone as I continue this journey and we can stop loosing people to senseless deaths. I hope your prayers are the same.

Remember, “No matter how hard life gets when you hit the very bottom of the barrel the only way to go from there is up.” We don’t have bad day’s just some days are better then others.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 26th, 2007 at 4:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.