As I stirred in the night and opened my eyes, I looked at
the time; it was 2:55; I was not surprised.
It is the time I awake most mornings.
I decided to go to ESPN Cricket News to see how young
Phillip Hughes was doing; I was devastated; it was announced that he was
dead. How sad, I thought. I had prayed for him and many thousands others
also prayed for his recovery; but it was not to be. He was gone. Prayers did not do any good I
thought fleetingly; but then a voice deep within told me I was wrong. Perhaps those prayers were all he had going
for him during those last 48 hours of his unconscious life. Maybe those prayers reached the throne of
grace and helped to accompany him home.
How tenuous a thing life is, I thought; and what a thin line
we walk in this life; how fragile the hold between life and death, and how
monumental the decisions we make while we yet have breath.
The doctors say his death was a freakish accident. He was
struck on the neck below the helmet. The
blow crushed his vertebral artery and sent blood to the area surrounding the
brain, and in spite of the best on the scene and post traumatic medical
attention the doctors were unable to save his life.
The truth is, whatever our age or situation in life, we are
all sojourners along the dual pathway of life.
As we go we make decisions constantly with regard to our
final destination. However much we enjoy
or seek to enjoy this present life, it is but a vapor which soon floats away.
And so the path we choose the way we go is all important.
Phillip loved his cricket.
It was for cricket he lived and died; and while we mourn his passing, we
may take time to ponder the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death.
As he was in the middle, Hughes was no doubt eyeing another
century; he was on 65 and when he saw that last short ball coming he thought no
doubt, here is one I can hit out of the park.
He could have ducked or swayed out of the way, no doubt; but he decided
to meet it head on. But alas, instead of
he hitting it out of the park, it hit him out of the park.
If he had a chance of facing that same delivery again,
knowing its fatal trajectory, it is certain he would have used a different
option; but there is no second chance after death. This lifetime is the only chance we get as we
progress each day to that boundary that has been fixed for us by the Ancient of
Days.
Phillip Hughes beloved cricketer is gone. We pray that in life he had made a choice to
live a life in preparation for the world in which he now finds himself. A world in which he shall spend all the rest
of eternity.
The Prophet Isaiah by inspiration of God wrote, as rendered
by the Living Bible: “The good men
perish; the godly die before their time and no one seems to care or wonder why.
No one seems to realize that God is
taking them away from the evil days ahead.
For the godly who die shall rest in peace.” {Isa. 57:1-2}
May the soul of Phillip Joel Hughes, Rest In Peace.
