Really? Are you Serious?
Lord, please bless and strengthen me and all involved and all who knew him, in Jesus’ name, amen.
This has been my avid prayer since 1999, when my second oldest brother, Richard, was murdered. My prayers became more fervent after my oldest brother, Ray, was murdered in 2003.
Dealing with so much death has made me appreciate life and the true purpose of it. Everyone wants to say be safe for homecoming, or be safe when you go home for breaks, but I say be safe always.
“For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanishes away,” the bible says.
I was in church Sunday when I received news that a close friend was murdered in Tampa hours earlier.
No one had to tell me; I knew he died as a result of black on black crime. I am hurt, but more so scared.
I’m not scared that someone will hurt me, and I’m not afraid of death – we all have to go some time. But what scares me is people who don’t respect life and those who don’t get the chance to reach their full potential. That is what really scares me. Better yet, I resent the people who murder, and I despise their callous attitude toward life.
Who gave mortal man the right to take someone’s life? I know their mothers and fathers didn’t give you the right to murder the child they brought into this world.
Who do you think you are? How would you feel if it happened to someone close to you? We all hate pain and we hate losing those whom we love. There is nothing like playing with your brother one day, and the next he is in a coffin that is being lowered six feet into the ground, with the words “ashes to ashes dust to dust” lingering in the air. I don’t want anyone to feel the pain that I’ve endured losing two brothers.
I don’t ever want anyone to get news that someone who has been a friend since middle school was shot and left bleeding outside on the street. He was only 20.
It would have made me feel 20 times better if he had died of natural causes than because somebody decided to play God. That life was someone’s cousin, son, father, and most of all, my friend, Jermone. His blood stains that street in Tampa. This semester we lost Shannon Washington. It wasn’t just her family and friends who mourned her death, but our entire campus community. You don’t have to know everything about a person to understand that her life is worth something.
You see, we are all connected. The decisions people make may not directly affect you, but they affect someone, somewhere.
I want to live as long as I can. If I have to go today, then let it be because it was my time to go, not because someone who doesn’t know or care about me decided my fate.