 |
|
|
A raspy voice was on the answering machine made Brad curious, “Hey Brad, this is your brother Bruce. I don’t have a reason to live anymore. I wish I could be dead,” then the answering machine went dead.
Brad, who lived in Illinois, called his brother in Texas, and left a voice message. “Bruce, this is your brother Brad, I need you to call me immediately. Please don‘t kill yourself. I love you very much. I don‘t want to loose you.”
Shaken by the message, Brad called his accountability partner from church, “Hey, this is Arnold.”
“Arnold, this is Brad, I just got a call from my brother Bruce. He left a voice message where he sounded suicidal. I tried to call him back; I couldn’t get him at all, just his voice mail. I don’t know what to do. He’s has tried to commit suicide at least twice before.”
Arnold, with a calm voice, tried to calm Brad down, “It is 5:30 now, I would keep trying to call him back. If he doesn’t answer by 10:30 call the police. The second thing I would do is pray, and I too will be praying for you and your brother.”
Brad called his brother at least 10 times that night. At 10:30 he called the police in Texas. “Houston Police Department,” answered the voice on the other line.
“Hey, I am concerned about my brother, Bruce, being suicidal. Could you go over to his house and see if he is okay. I would do that but I live in Illinois.”
“Sure we can, first off what is your name? Does he live in Houston?”
“I am sorry my name is Brad, and yes he lives in Houston.”
“What is his address?” asked the police officer.
“104 Maple Road.”
You could hear the officer banging away at the computer, “Okay, we’ll check it out and we will call you back. Is 618-555-5800 a good number call you back at?”
Brad sounded a little more relieved. “Yes it is, thank you,” He sat down on the sofa and relaxed.
***********************
Twenty-four hours later, the Houston police called back. “Hello this is Brad.”
“This is Detective Jankowski with the Houston Police Department. I was assigned to go over to your brother’s house. I went over there several times in the past 24 hours, he was not home. I don’t know what more we can do unless you give us an idea where he might possibly be. “
Brad spoke fast, “He has tried to commit suicide before. I know he lost his job. I’ll have to give that some thought and get back to you. Although, before I called you, I tried calling him. He apparently has gotten his voice messages because his voice mail box is not full anymore. I called so many times yesterday that maybe I filled it up.”
“Maybe that is a good sign. Again, if you have any leads my number is 701-555-6864.”
Brad felt sad and worried he sighed when he said, "I just talked to someone from the Houston Police Department. They went there, he was not home. Apparently he received his voice messages. I am really worried I don’t know what to do.”
“Brad, all you can do at this point is pray. The good thing is he has gotten his voice messages. That probably means that he is still living. You need to pray and trust the Lord.”
“Okay I will do that,” as Brad hung up the phone.
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be right now. CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.
|
|
|
