WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I NEEDED YOU?

These were some of the last words screamed at a hospital Chaplin in Chicago, Illinois. I heard this horrible testimony at some point in the nineteen sixties. While conducting a revival service in the state of Illinois a short time later I repeated the story I had heard. While I was telling of this 17-year-old girl and her short-lived life, I noticed a lady in the service weeping bitterly. Following the service, she immediately approached me and introduced herself as the Pastor’s daughter. The revival services were just beginning and I had not yet met any of the congregation of that church. She continued to weep and asked where I heard the story. She said I had very accurately told of this incident. She told me that she was a registered nurse and was most familiar with this tragic happening. This Pastor’s daughter could speak about this frightfully tragic event because she was a part of the medical staff that attempted to treat this young lady and hopefully save her life. The girl lived a very short time before dying a horrible death.

As a young girl, this poor soul fell victim to a tragic lifestyle. She traveled about with over-the-road truckers who picked her up to use her for sexual pleasure. They used her, and later discarded her when she was of no longer any satisfaction to them.

This true story continues into an alley in Chicago when a sanitation truck driver thought he heard some movement in a container he was emptying. Thinking it was possibly an animal, he removed the cover and found the body of this young girl. She was barely alive. It was reported that in every soft portion of her body, the bend of her elbows and knees, etc., worms were crawling in and out of her. Almost unbelievable to comprehend, but true.

The hospital Chaplin was called in, and in conversation with her he tried to witness to her, and tell of salvation and the love of God for her, to which she screamed back to him this question “WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I NEEDED YOU?”

As Christians and lovers of Christ, we should be witnesses. We sometimes judge people and jump to the wrong conclusions about many who are lost. We should run the risk of offending some in the God-given hope that we could effectively reach a soul for whom Christ died. God forbid anyone ever cries these words to us “WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I NEEDED YOU?”

God forbid that we fail lost souls because we waited until it was too late!