"They Were Almost (Home),..."

"...but out of darkness appeared the train." said the father of a 12 year young lady who was killed Thursday in Baytown, Texas along with 4 other teens. Two other boys miraculously survived. The father arrived at the accident site after discovering his daughter was not in her room and hearing a loud crash. He arrived at the accident site just in time time to see rescuers take her lifeless body out of the wreck.

The girl, Loral Moyers, had been warned by her father that very evening concerning several ground rules for the summer, among them bringing the computer to him by 10:30 at night so she would not spend all night on MySpace.

He had no idea that she had been seeing two other boys and planned on sneaking out that very night.

The tragedy occurred when a stalled train blocked an intersection in the night. The intersection where it was stopped was not well marked or lit. The group of teens had somehow commandeered a Jeep and were out joyriding. They were almost home when the driver, apparently not seeing the stopped train, collided with with it, shearing off its top while the rest of the vehicle continued under the train and ended up in a ditch. Railroad workers were not even aware at the time that the accident had occurred.

The words of the father are quite poignant. They were almost home, yet the train appeared out the darkness.

We make wrong, sinful choices in life. We come to believe that we are getting away with something. We are almost home free. But suddenly, unexpectedly, a train wreck occurs. It comes out of the darkness and out of nowhere. Lives are instantly changed forever.

Some time ago, while watching a reality show featuring paramedics, I heard one of the emergency workers say, "It only takes a split second to change lives forever."

Changed forever. Families will be without children. The lazy, crazy days of summer vacation are marred with terrible sadness. The train came out of the darkness.

A solemn warning to all of us. Life has its trainwrecks, some unavoidable, and some self inflicted. The Bible says, "Your sins will find you out." None of us truly "gets away with anything. The consequences of bad choices and willful sin may be delayed.

But they surely come, like a train out of the darkness.

My heart and my prayers are with those families.