Sad state of affairs

It is quintessential to a life without Christ. I don't want to bum you all (and by all I mean the 3 readers) out, but I saw something today that broke my heart.

I just finished giving a guy a seatbelt ticket in the parking lot of a local gas station. A man approached me and said, "Officer, there's a lady passed out over by that butane tank." I drove over to the tank and saw a sad sight. There was a lady half on the pavement, half in the bushes, her face buried in the shrubs, urine stained pants, and a six pack of 24oz Bud Light next to her hip. My first thought was, "Lord please let her be alive." I called out, "Ma'am are you okay?" several times with no reponse. I shook her knee trying to rouse her and finally saw her ribcage rise and fall. Within the next couple of minutes I finally helped her get up to her feet and start to walk back to the motel she was living out of. The one thing that stuck in my head was this that she said, "My church is supposed to be helping me." Are they? Are they required, obligated to help her? How much is she supposed to help herself? Ultimately leading me to the question, can she help herself? The answer quickly came, "Not without Christ." Without Christ we all could be flat on our faces in a bush, passed out from intoxication, laying in a puddle of our own urine, wishing for someone or something to come along and help us out.

It saddens me that I had to see this today, but gives me hope that maybe someone from her church might enlighten her with the message of the gospel and that the spirit would enter into her life causing a dramatic change. Nonetheless, one of many quintessential examples of what any of our lives would be without Christ.