Tonight I had to do what no Youth Pastor enjoys doing – visiting a student in the hospital. Joseph Logan went with our youth group last year to Battle Cry in Detroit where this picture was taken. He was a short, shy kid with black curly hair. He came to 29:11 when his Grandma brought him so we saw him every few weeks or so. After we moved out of our location at Seekers Coffee House he stopped coming so I haven’t seen him a while.

I got a phone call from my Pastor earlier this evening telling me that Joseph (now 13 years old) was taken to the hospital and was unresponsive. I drove down to see him and the family. Joseph had been at a friend’s house the night before and had gotten into some prescription drugs. The combination he took put him into a semi-coma state which is how he looked when I came in. He was hooked up to at least 4 or 5 machines that were monitoring him and trying to pump out whatever was left of the drugs in his stomach. It was heart-wrenching to see such a young boy with so much life left ahead of him lying there like that.

I prayed with the family and for Joseph and trying to encourage them the best I could. What else could you do? What do you say in a situation like that?

On the way home I thought about how fragile life is. So many young kids just like Joseph take their lives in their own hands every day. They play around with drugs or alcohol and think that the consequences affect them. It breaks my heart when someone I know becomes part of the statistics that we hear about so often.

Life is fragile. Make the most of yours by helping others make the most of theirs.