Another Life Saved

He first met Roderick Wolfe outside a grocery store called, “Stop, Shop, and Save.”  
He described Roderick’s appearance as “tall, malnourished, very dirty.  He really looked homeless.”

Roderick was homeless - on the streets of Baltimore , Maryland .  His father, a drug dealer, died two days before Roderick’s 10th birthday. His mother slipped into drugs, got AIDS and lost their home.  By his senior year in high school, he was living in his car, alleys, or a city park, often sleeping on a park bench.

However, this meeting between Roderick and Morgan State Football coach Don Hill-Eley would change Roderick’s life.  Roderick says it saved his life.

“If it wasn't for Coach Hill, Lord knows, I could be selling drugs, I could be dead or in jail,” Wolfe told CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston.

The coach decided to give Roderick an opportunity to have a better life.  “I took a chance on him because I remember being who he was,” Hill-Eley said. “And I knew that desperation.”  Coach Hill’s mother had also been a drug user.  He was rescued by his grandparents.

The coach gave Roderick a scholarship and he also found a home.  “What is your home address?” Pinkston asked Roderick.  “ 1700 East Cold Spring Lane ,” came the reply.  “Where it that?”  “ Morgan State University ,” said Roderick.

It was the coach who reached Roderick.  Recalling the supermarket where they first met, Coach Hill-Eley remarked, “I always tell him, we stopped, shopped, and we probably saved Roderick’s life.” *

Roderick’s situation before he met Coach Hill-Eley pictures our own situation in sin.  We were “without Christ … having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12), desperately lost in our sin.

But Jesus came to our rescue.  He came from heaven to save us from our sins (John 3:16-17).  He died on the cross as payment for our sins so that we might have forgiveness (Ephesians 1:7) and an eternal home with Him in heaven (John 14:1-6).

Jesus will save those who: believe in Him (Acts 16:30-31), turn from their sinful ways in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Him before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) in His name for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).  He will lead those who continue to follow Him faithfully to an eternal home (1 John 1:7; Romans 2:7).

In sin, we are in a desperate situation indeed.  But Christ continues to reach out to us with salvation.

Won’t YOU accept His offer on His terms and realize the blessing of “another life saved”?

David A. Sargent, Minister

Church of Christ at Creekwood 
1901 Schillinger Rd. S.
Mobile, Alabama  36695

* Randall Pinkston.  “From The Streets To The Football Field.” CBSNews.com -- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/12/04/eveningnews/main3575848.shtml

To Subscribe to "Living Water" send a blank e-mail to:

                      HTML version:  subscribe-livingwater@lyris.dundee.net
                   TEXT version:  subscribe-livingwater-text@lyris.dundee.net

Follow this link to locate the church of Christ nearest you: www.churchzip.com

Archived issues of "Living Water" can be accessed from our website at: www.creekwoodcc.org