High Speed Grief and a family that needs our prayers

Yesterday, I opened an email from AMFM, a marriage and family ministry that links together pastors and marriage and family ministry leaders from across the country. The email said that a friend of ours from Texas was literally minutes away from losing their 12 year old son. Conner Deal was fighting for his life in a hospital in Dallas. His parents, Ron and Nancy, having brought him down from Amarillo to a larger hospital were at side. Ten days before, he was doing great. He caught a cold, it went into his lungs, and now he was fighting for his life against pneumonia. We gathered as many people together as we could in our office, and prayed for this family and this young man and his parents. (As others prayed, I thought of having lunch with Conner and his family after I'd spoken at his father's church. I could see him running towards a water park this past August near the hotel his family stayed at for the AMFM conference. A precious, active, awesome kid.). Several people prayed, and when we lifted our heads, another email popped up, sharing the news that Conner had gone to be with the Lord. I can't explain how sad it was to step into that life and death drama at light speed. I also can't imagine the grief that the Deal family is having to cope with this day. Technology is a great thing. But on this day it carried sad news at high speed. Please pray with us for the Deal family, today, and in the really tough days ahead.