What a day may bring

Yesterday at 10.50 a.m., I was walking alongside the road outside my
house. About 30 metres in front of me and in the road, Mark Wanyama
Marofu was riding his bicycle. He was a poor, labouring man, 55 years
old and a member of the Salvation Army, who was cycling to an epilepsy
centre where he did some volunteer work.

Behind us both was a Mitsubishi Prado driven by a drunk man who was (I'm
fairly sure) not its owner. He drove past me, but into Mark's bicycle,
shunting him down the road, and into a parked pick-up truck with such
force that some of the car's bumper fell off. Mark finished up under
the pick-up; his bike ended up about another 20 metres down the road.
Other angry pedestrians started chasing the Prado, which crashed into a
bollard not much further on.

I telephoned a friend who was coming to meet me, and about 10 minutes
later we had managed to get Mark into the car and were on the way to the
nearest hospital. We managed to find out Mark's identity from the
contents of his pockets.

Mark still seemed semi-conscious at this point - it wasn't clear if he
could understand anything that was going on, but he seemed to register
that someone was speaking to him - and still conscious but less so
whilst he was having his emergency assessment at the A & E. But not much
later, he was hooked up to all kinds of machines and having continual
injections and a blood transfusion. The machines were flashing up many
warnings about his blood pressure, pulse, oxygen levels and body
temperature. It seemed that he was in shock with big internal bleeding,
but the staff managed to stabilise him and the numbers improved. But not
long later they put a curtain around him and refused to allow me to see
him any more and gave no more reports.

From the contents of Mark's pockets we managed to contact someone in
his church. About 3 hours after the accident about twelve people,
including his wife, arrived at the hospital, but by this time nobody was
allowed to see him, and he was left in the acute care unit overnight.

He died overnight, presumably from his internal injuries (the only major
visible injuries were a large gash on top of his head that was bleeding,
and a puncture of his cheek).

I left the house expecting to have coffee with a friend; but instead was
yards away from a fatal accident and spent most of the day at hospital.

Mark's wife saw him leave the house in the morning. The next thing she
heard was that he had been hit by a car and had a severe head injury.
She never saw him alive again, and is now a widow.

Mark went out on his bike to help volunteer at an epilepsy centre. He
never arrived. Before he did anything else, he had been hit by a car,
left this world and everything in it forever, and stood before his Maker
to be assigned his eternal destiny.

Are you ready for what today may bring? If God summons you before the
sun sets, will it all be well with your soul?

Do you live each day reminding yourself that whilst you make your plans,
God can and does over-rule them all?

Have you said sorry to God for your sins, and are you walking closely
with Jesus Christ as your Saviour, so that at whatever hour he calls
you, you will be ready to stand before him?