Accident

Paul Auster, a prolific novelist, memoirist, and screenwriter was described as a “literary superstar” and “one of America’s most spectacularly inventive writers.” But his life was haunted by tragedy and death. In 1961, a 14-year-old Paul Auster watched a friend die after being struck by lightning. Later, he lost one grandmother to a heart attack and another to A.L.S., a disease which Auster said left victims with “no hope, no remedy, nothing in front of you but a prolonged march towards disintegration.” Later there were the deaths of his mother and father; the passing of his 10-month-old granddaughter Ruby, and his son, Daniel, who overdosed in 2022.

Auster wrote that “the world was capricious and unstable, that the future can be stolen from us at any moment, that the sky is full of lightning bolts that can crash down and kill the young as well as the old, and always, always, the lightning strikes when we are least expecting it.”

Sadness permeated Auster’s work. After his death at the age of 77, his wife wrote, “Paul was extremely interested in the idea of the hero who is cast into a new world by grief. He used that device a lot: the stripped person. The person who has lost their most profound connections to the world.”

For the second time in just over a week, fighter jets from the USS Harry S. Truman have fallen into the ocean, raising concerns about a pattern of mishaps aboard the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier operating in the Red Sea.

The latest incident occurred when an F/A-18F Super Hornet crashed into the Red Sea during a failed landing attempt. According to a U.S. official, the fighter jet experienced a "failed arrestment" while trying to land on the carrier, prompting both aviators to eject. They were quickly recovered with only minor injuries, and no additional personnel were harmed.

The Navy has launched an investigation into the cause of the failed landing. The mishap took place during routine flight operations.

Just eight days earlier, another F/A-18 fighter jet was lost from the same aircraft carrier. In that case, the plane was being towed in the hangar bay when it fell overboard, taking a tow tractor with it.

These incidents mark the third and fourth significant operational failures involving the Truman within the past year. In February, the carrier collided with a large merchant vessel near Port Said, Egypt. Prior to that, another F/A-18 was accidentally shot down by a ship in the Truman’s own strike group.

The USS Harry S. Truman has been stationed in the Red Sea as part of the U.S. Navy’s mission to protect commercial shipping lanes amid ongoing threats from Houthi rebels in Yemen.

These back-to-back aircraft losses are prompting closer scrutiny of operations aboard the Truman. The Navy has not yet indicated whether changes in procedures or readiness protocols will follow.

Possible Preaching Angle:

We must remain vigilant and attentive, individually and as a church body, lest through carelessness we fall into sin, which leads to destruction. Through teamwork and communication, we can protect our communities by guarding against calamity.

When Sarah Darling dropped some change into a homeless man's cup, she didn't notice anything amiss. But she quickly realized that her diamond engagement ring was missing. Turns out, panhandler Billy Ray Harris noticed it in his cup right away, and held onto it. When Sarah came back the next day, he had it waiting for her.

As a reward for his honesty, Sarah gave him all the cash she had on her, and then set up a site for receiving donations from strangers wanting to help reward Harris' honesty. The site has received an overwhelming response. Along with the money, Harris is getting legal and financial counsel to help him use it well.

And that’s not all: After he made a TV appearance about the incident, his family members, who had not been able to find him for 16 years and had heard rumors that he was dead, were able to track him down. They were happily reunited, and Harris is now working on his relationship with them.

Harris said, “When I think of the past, I think, thank God it’s over. I mean, I feel human now.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sometimes, honesty pays off, but sometimes our honesty may only be for our "Father who sees in secret." (Matt. 6:1-4)

Trinity Evangelical Divinty School professor Kevin Vanhoozer writes about caring for his aging mother in an issue of CT magazine:

For nine years now, I have been watching my mother’s identity slowly fade as memories and capacities switch off, one after another, like lights of a house shutting down for the night. Marriage may be a school of sanctification, as Luther said, but caring for aging parents is its grad school, especially when he or she lives with you and suffers from dementia.

It’s been said that as we become older, we become caricatures of ourselves. Dementia speeds the process. It’s easy to see why: With loss of executive cognitive functioning, we’re less prone to monitor what we say and do. We begin to fly on auto-pilot, re-tracing again and again well-trod paths.

What lies under … the social masks we have carefully constructed? What lies under my mother’s happy face? (“I’m fine,” she’d say, even after a fall). I recently discovered the answer.

Years into the dementia, she lost her last line of defense and began to voice her inmost thoughts aloud. “Father, don’t let me fall” accompanied her every shuffling step behind her walker. Initially I thought this terribly sad—clearly, she wasn’t fine but anxious—yet I eventually found it comforting. The Bible depicts life as a walk: Shouldn’t we all be praying to the Lord to help us avoid missteps? Though she had forgotten former friends and neighbors, and large swaths of her own life, she remembered the fatherhood of God.

One of the zany experiments staged by the "Mythbusters" television show nearly turned into a suburban tragedy in Dublin, California when the crew fired a homemade cannon toward huge containers of water at the Alameda County Sheriff's Department bomb disposal range.

The cantaloupe-sized cannonball missed the water, tore through a cinder-block wall, skipped off a hillside and flew some 700 yards east, right into the Tassajara Creek neighborhood, where children were returning home from school at 4:15 p.m. There, the 6-inch projectile bounced in front of a home on quiet Cassata Place, ripped through the front door, raced up the stairs and blasted through a bedroom, where a man, woman and child slept through it all, only awakening because of plaster dust.

The ball wasn't done bouncing. It exited the house, leaving a perfectly round hole in the stucco, crossed six-lane Tassajara Road, took out several tiles from the roof of a home on Bellevue Circle and finally slammed into the Gill family's beige Toyota Sienna minivan in a driveway on Springvale Drive.

That's where Jasbir Gill, who had pulled up 10 minutes earlier with his 13-year-old son, found the ball on the floorboards, with glass everywhere and an obliterated dashboard. "It's shocking - anything could have happened," Gill said after the van had been taken away as evidence, along with the cannonball.

"Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy," said Sgt. J.D. Nelson, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff's Department. "You wouldn't think it was possible." He said the television crew was incredibly unlucky that the cannonball flew through Dublin, but "tremendously lucky that it didn't seriously injure or kill somebody."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Youl can use this to set up a sermon on the power of sin or hurtful words to inflict much more damage than we ever imagined. Just as the local police sergeant said, "Crazy, crazy, crazy. You wouldn't think it was possible." That's what we all say when we see the impact of our hurtful words or sins against others.

A shocking video captured the moment a fisherman was bitten by a shark that pulled him overboard into the murky waters of Florida’s Everglades—seconds after he shrugged off his friend’s warning.

The frightening ordeal unfolded after the man leaned over the boat to rinse his hands in the water as his pal cautioned him of the dangers. “I wouldn’t put your hands in there,” a person off-camera says.

“Ah, two seconds won’t do anything,” the man replies as he bends over the side of the boat and dips his right hand into the water. Almost instantly, a shark chomps onto the fisherman’s right hand and drags him head-first into the water as he screamed. The shark releases its grip and the man tried to grab onto the boat with his injured hand, leaving a bloody handprint behind.

“Get him! Get him!” the friend screams in a panic. The man was able to get himself back onto the boat with the help of his friends.

His friend, Michael Russo who caught the attack on camera, said the group sped back to the dock and park rangers came to the victim’s aid. “He was airlifted to the hospital and is in the best care possible.”

Russo shared the video as a warning to others. He said, “Today was one of the scariest days on the water I have ever had. After releasing a fish, Nick washed his hands in the water and was immediately bit by a large shark. The sharks are no joke in the Everglades and the warnings about keeping your hands out of the water are not an exaggeration. Please take this as a lesson and keep your hands out of the water because this could have been prevented.”

You can view the terrifying video here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Many people also ignore the Bible’s warnings about Satan, who “prowls around seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:7). “Ah, just a moment of yielding to temptation won’t do anything! I’ll be fine.” Sadly, some never escape his clutches.

Texas pastor Tan Flippin was left thanking God, after a cycling accident in 2018 landed him in the hospital with fractures to his hip. His ride that eventful day, past a stretch undergoing repair, beside a subdivision, led to the crash that threw him off his bicycle. He said later, “I’d gone through that area before with no issues.”

When the doctors at the hospital ordered a CT scan to check for a concussion, what they discovered was shocking. They noticed a large malignant tumor on the front of Tan’s brain. That discovery began a long journey of treatment that eventually led to bone marrow and stem cell transplants. Today, he is cancer-free.

Flippin said, “God allowed the accident for my brain tumor to be found.”

The story has led to Flippin's testimony being shared on a regular basis. He said, "People want me to tell this story and that my faith has inspired them and been an encouragement. I hear that about every week.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Similarly, God can use the challenges and unpleasant situations we encounter to work out something good in our lives and to bring glory to his name. We can trust God to work out something meaningful through them (Phil. 1:12-18).

In early January, the Portland area suffered from a winter storm that not only blanketed the area with several layers of snow and ice, but buffeted the area with high winds, resulting in many downed trees and power lines.

Eighteen-year-old Majiah Washington saw a flash from her window in Northeast Portland on Wednesday morning. She opened the blinds to find a collapsed power line on top of a neighbor’s car and a tree branch on the ground. She watched as members of the neighboring family, who appeared to have been getting into their SUV, tried suddenly to escape it. A small fire grew under the car.

A man holding a baby slipped down a driveway on the ice and the man’s foot touched the live wire, Washington said. Twenty-one-year-old Tajaliayh Briggs, then rushed towards the man to get the child, slipping on the ice, and hit the live power line as well.

Washington said she watched a teenager approach the SUV while she called 911. The teen—identified as High School sophomore Ta’Ron Briggs—would also die in the accident.

Majiah Washington saw all this, and disregarding her fear of death, decide to intervene as well. She later said at a press conference, “The baby moved his head ... and that’s how I knew he was still here. I wasn’t thinking ‘Oh, I can be electrocuted.’ I was thinking, ‘I need to grab this baby.’”

Portland Fire & Rescue spokesperson Rick Graves said the agency was thankful for Washington’s brave actions and that she later told officials, “I just did what any sane person would do.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

When we sacrifice our own health and safety to rescue children in danger, we model the love of Jesus for all children.

Actor Jeremy Renner said he would risk getting run over by a snowplow again to save his nephew. Renner said, “I’d do it again, because it was going right at my nephew.”

The accident happened near Renner’s Nevada home. Heavy snow had fallen, and his vehicle, driven by a family member, got stuck. Renner went to get into his snowplow, which weighs at least 14,000 pounds, to help move the vehicle. As he was speaking with the family member, the snowplow began to roll. He attempted to get back inside, but was run over. The 52-year-old actor broke over 30 bones and required numerous surgeries.

Renner said he thought he might die. He told Diane Sawyer, “I’m thinkin’ like, ‘What’s my body look like? Am I just gonna be like a spine in a brain, like a science experiment?’” Renner’s neighbor who made the 911 call said, “It was blood, the amount of blood, and then he was—he was just in such pain. Then when I looked at his head, it appeared to me to be cracked wide open.”

Renner had broken bones spanning the entire length of his body—including both his ankles, some of his ribs, his right shoulder, eye socket, and jaw. He also suffered a collapsed lung. At one point in the televised interview, Renner started crying and said, “What we just endured. That’s real love. It’s suffering. But that feeds the seeds of what love is.”

In the dead of night at the heart of the Colombian jungle, army radios crackled to life with the message the nation had been praying for: "Miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle." The military code revealed that four children missing in the jungle for 40 days had all been found--alive.

The youngsters, all members of the indigenous Huitoto people, had been missing since the light plane they were travelling in crashed into the Amazon on May 1, 2023. The tragedy killed their mother and the two pilots and left the children--aged 13, nine, four, and one--stranded alone in an area teeming with snakes, jaguars, and mosquitos.

Rescuers initially feared the worst, but footprints, partially eaten wild fruit and other clues soon gave them hope that the children might be alive after they left the crash site looking for help. Over the next six weeks, the children battled the elements in what Colombia's President Gustavo Petro called "an example of total survival which will remain in history."

If there were ever children well-prepared to tackle such an ordeal, the Mucutuy family were the ones. Huitoto people learn hunting, fishing, and gathering from an early age, and their grandfather told reporters that the eldest children were well acquainted with the jungle.

Speaking to Colombian media, the children's aunt said the family would regularly play a “survival game” together growing up. She recalled, “When we played, we set up little camps. Thirteen-year-old Lesly knew what fruits she can't eat, because there are many poisonous fruits in the forest. And she knew how to take care of a baby.”

After the crash, Lesly built makeshift shelters from branches held together with her hair ties. She also recovered fariña, a type of cassava flour, from the wreckage of the Cessna plane they had been travelling in. The children survived on the flour until it ran out and then they ate seeds. The fruit from the avichure tree, also known as milk tree, is rich in sugar and its seeds can be chewed like chewing gum.

But they still faced significant challenges surviving in the inhospitable environment. Indigenous expert Alex Rufino said the children were in “a very dark, very dense jungle, where the largest trees in the region are.” In addition to avoiding predators, the children also endured intense rainstorms.

John Moreno, leader of the Guanano group in the south-eastern part of Colombia where the children were brought up, said they had been "raised by their grandmother," a widely respected indigenous elder. He said, “They used what they learned in the community, relied on their ancestral knowledge in order to survive.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is the duty of parents and the church community to train up children to survive and thrive in the hostile environment of the world. It is literally “a jungle out there” for our children and they must be prepared when they are young.

Eleven-year-old Aderrien Murry once held aspirations of becoming a police officer, but that changed after a recent encounter with law enforcement. Murry was with his mother Nakala late one night when a domestic disturbance broke out between her and the father of one of his siblings. Nakala asked him to call 911, and he did, asking for assistance from local police.

According to attorney Carlos Moore, representing the Murry family, the first officer on the scene was Greg Capers, who arrived with his firearm drawn. Even after Nakala told Capers that no one in the apartment was armed, she says Capers yelled out a command for anyone in the apartment to come out with their hands up. And while Aderrian was complying with the officer’s command and had his hands up, the officer shot him anyway. At a news conference, she remembered the boy’s immediate response: “Why did he shoot me? What did I do?”

A representative from the Indianola Police Department eventually confirmed Capers’ identity as the shooter, and referred to the incident as “extremely tragic on both sides.” Officials have since launched a probe into the shooting, although it’s not clear whether racial animus played a role in the shooting, since Capers, Nakala, and Aderrien Murry are all African American.

Still, the family and many members of the local community are shaken, despite the fact that Aderrien is expected to make a full recovery. Attorney Moore said, “There’s no justification for what this officer did. Aderrien came within an inch of losing his life over the officer’s reckless actions.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

In a climate of hopelessness and violence, even children can become targeted by careless officials. The way of Jesus is marked by making peace, taking care, and creating safety for everyone in the community, not just the rich or powerful.

Twelve-year-old Amelia Loverme hadn’t received any formalized training when she saw her twin brother Charlie in need of medical intervention. But she didn’t let that stop her from getting the job done.

Charlie said, “[I thought] I was going to die. It's just scary and you just don't know what's going to happen next and it's just really scary.” Amelia added, “It was just instinct, I didn't really know what to do, I just feel like I had to help him.”

And help him she did. The siblings were both in their lunch period at Leicester Middle School when Charlie began choking on a piece of mozzarella cheese. When other students in his immediate vicinity were too scared or confused to know what to do, Amelia leapt into action. Security footage caught her giving her brother a series of abdominal thrusts known as the Heimlich maneuver.

Jason Loverme, the twins’ father said, “Adults should talk to their kids about life-saving stuff like this. Whether you think it registers or not, they may tune it out but clearly something registered and she recalled it when she needed it.” Jason says a lack of training should never inhibit someone in the position of potentially giving life-saving help. “If you can help somebody and you can react regardless of if you're nervous or not, you should.”

For her quick thinking and heroism, Amelia was honored by the official school committee, and a public honor from a local law enforcement agency might be in the works.

Note: You can watch the video of Amelia saving her brother’s life here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Anyone can become God's vessel of deliverance; all it takes is willingness to see the need and act accordingly to the Spirit's leading.

When Principal James Marsh arrived at Zela Elementary School in rural Summersville on a Monday morning, he had no reason for alarm. Everything looked normal and in working order. He greeted his teachers and stood out front to greet students as they arrived on buses.

When a custodian informed Marsh that he couldn’t unlock one of the dumpsters, he quickly went over to help. After unlocking the combination lock and lifting the metal bar restricting access, Marsh heard deep growling. After a moment, the dumpster lid lifted, and Marsh was staring into the eyes of a black bear. “If he’d have reached his paw out, he could have swiped me,” Marsh said.

In a sequence captured on security footage, the bear quickly bolted from the dumpster and ran off into the nearby wilderness as Marsh too ran in the opposite direction. After a brief moment to collect himself, Marsh was seen laughing. “Did you not hear anything?” he asked the custodian. Nope, he hadn’t seen or heard a thing. It wasn’t until they reviewed several hours of security footage that they uncovered evidence that the bear had previously gorged itself on food inside, then fallen asleep.

When he asked the students to name the bear (in case it ever returned), the students decided on “Jack.” “Because he came out of there like a jack-in-the-box.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Life is filled with surprises and sometimes sudden danger. We are not to worry about the future or live in dread, but put our trust in God. We should live confidently, recognizing that any moment may be our last on earth.

Many of the world’s greatest souls became their best selves not in spite of but because of their distress. The great hymn writer Cowper wrote hopeful hymns and the great artist Van Gogh brushed epic paintings while contemplating suicide. Charles Spurgeon preached some of his best sermons while depressed. Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and Martin Luther King Jr. battled melancholy. The great composer Beethoven went deaf. C.S. Lewis buried his wife after a short, cancer-ridden marriage. Elie Wiesel and Corrie Ten Boom survived the holocaust. Joni Eareckson Tada lost her ability to walk in a tragic accident. John Perkins endured jail, beatings, and death threats from white supremacists.

As grief expert Elizabeth Kubler Ross famously noted, “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known one defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation and sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep love and concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced an investigation into a traffic incident involving a Tesla striking a pedestrian. Local authorities say the driver of a 2022 Tesla Model Y failed to stop for a school bus while it was dropping off students, and one of the students was struck after having just exited the bus. The NHTSA investigation was triggered because it was believed that the driver of the Tesla was using a partially automated driving system at the time of the crash.

Since 2016, NHTSA investigators have probed extensively into at least 30 different auto accidents involving Teslas using driver-assist technology. These premium options are marketed under terms like “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving.” Critics call these options misleading, since Tesla insists that drivers using them must keep their hands on the wheel and maintain vehicular awareness at all times.

Michael Brooks is the executive director of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington. He believes that Tesla has a unique responsibility in addressing these safety concerns.

Brooks said, “I’ve been saying probably for a couple of years now, they need to figure out why these vehicles aren’t recognizing flashing lights for a big starter. NHTSA needs to step in and get them to do a recall because that’s a serious safety issue.”

In February, NHTSA pressure resulted in Tesla recalling more than 300,000 vehicles because their driver assist software was violating traffic laws. Tesla said the problem was corrected via an over-the-air software update, similar to how smartphones receive updates. This action followed a request by the U.S. Department of Justice for Tesla to turn over internal documents related to its “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” features.

Possible Preaching Angle:

When people put too much trust in technology, there can be dangerous consequences. Tech companies must put public safety over profits and innovation.

When artificially-intelligent robots began to first play chess, many analysts regarded it as a game-breaking innovation. But in Russia, you don’t break the game; the game breaks you. At least that was the case at the Moscow Open in July. According to local media, a seven-year-old boy named Christopher was playing against such a robot when it grabbed the boy’s finger, eventually breaking it.

Sergey Lazarev, president of the Moscow Chess Federation, acknowledged the incident in a comically understated fashion. Lazarev said, “The robot broke the child’s finger. This is of course bad.” Lazarev went on to explain that the robot had played several matches with other children without incident, and explained that the injury occurred because Christopher had probably forgotten to abide by one of the safety guidelines where players are supposed to let the robot finish its move before starting another move in response.

According to Lazarev, Christopher was not overly traumatized from the injury. He said, “The child played the very next day and finished the tournament.”

A federation official was quick to affirm that such injuries are rare and that the robot is still safe to engage. “There are certain safety rules and the child, apparently, violated them. This is an extremely rare case, the first I can recall. ... Apparently, children need to be warned. It happens.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sometimes technology that seems harmless can contain hidden dangers. We should be careful in how we make consumer decisions, particularly when deploying technology around our loved ones.

In a fictional YouTube video, the main character, Eric, is walking his dog Nova. The dog sees a rabbit, runs after it, pulling the leash from Eric's hand. The dog is soon lost and Eric spends several days frantically searching for Nova. After a week Eric is devastated. He is upset about the bad luck of a rabbit jumping out just at the wrong time and leading Nova on a wild chase.

After another week a woman, Vanessa, rings Eric's doorbell with Nova in tow. After the emotional reunion with Nova, Eric slowly gets to know Vanessa and they fall in love. Eric realizes how lucky they were that Vanessa was at the right place at the right time to find Nova.

Two months later as Eric is driving to visit Vanessa, he is T-boned by a negligent driver. He suffers a severe head injury and tests are immediately done at the hospital. He is furious that his life could be ruined by this random accident when he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The next day the doctor tells him of the results of the CT scan. There is a tumor growing in his brain. It had nothing to do with the accident, from which Eric would make a full recovery. The tumor was discovered because of the accident and the CT scan. It was in its early stages, and could effectively be treated. Normally the tumor is discovered when there are symptoms, when it is almost always too late. The doctor tells him the car accident saved his life.

A week later Eric has successful brain surgery. Days later Eric is at home, recovering, with Vanessa. To get some fresh air he takes Nova out for a walk.

You can watch this 6 min. video here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This short story video is quite compelling and an excellent illustration for Bible verses like “All things work together....” (Rom. 8:28), facing trials (Jam.1:2-4) and restoration after suffering (1 Pet. 5:10). Christians are often perplexed by the things happening to them but God intends that good should come out of evil. (Gen 50:20)

Mount Walker, about 60 miles northwest of Seattle, is said to have remarkable views. But one woman’s unforgettable experience atop the mountain restricted her field of view considerably. That’s because she fell into a pit toilet trying to rescue her phone.

According to Fire Department Chief Tim Manly, she was using her phone on the pit toilet when it fell inside. She first tried to remove the toilet seat in order to reach in, and then used her dog leash as a makeshift rope to lower herself in. That effort, however, failed--dropping her headfirst into the toilet.

Once reunited with her phone, she tried and failed to climb out. After that didn’t work, she called 911 for help. Once firefighters arrived on the scene, they used a surprisingly low-tech solution: cinder blocks, which she used to stand on. After she was high enough, they were able to attach a harness and lift her out of the toilet.

According to the department’s statement, the woman was uninjured and strongly encouraged to seek medical attention, but she only wanted to leave. Chief Manly said, “I’ve been doing this for 40 years. And that was a first.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sometimes when we think we can fix things on our own we end up making things worse. Sometimes God prompts us to take action; other times, to wait until proper help can arrive. Wisdom is in discerning the difference between the two.

On the unusually cold morning of January 28, 1986, the Challenger space shuttle blew apart 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all seven astronauts on board. But according to some conspiracy theorists, six of the seven crew members still live among us.

Some of the examples are:

Captain Richard “Dick” Scobee, is now the CEO of a Chicago marketing-advertising company called Cows in Trees.

Pilot Michael J. Smith is professor Michael J. Smith of the University of Wisconsin.

Mission Specialist Judith Resnik is a professor of Law at Yale Law School.

Payload Specialist (and “Teacher in Space”) Christa McAuliffe now only uses her first name, Sharon. She has an almost entirely different face than that of Christa’s, and is an adjunct professor at Syracuse University College of Law.

Payload Specialist Gregory Jarvis is the only person that the conspiracy theorists believe died, because they couldn’t identify a double for him.

The facts have repeatedly shown that Challenger tragically fell from the sky due to an O-ring failure after the ship was launched in unsafe temperatures.

In a recent article in Popular Mechanics, Professor Marta Marchlewska at the Polish Institute of Psychology explained the cause for such conspiracies. “People who say that astronauts are still alive refuse to accept that bad things accidentally happen to good people. So, there's someone behind the disaster or it simply did not happen.”

The author of the article then summarizes: “A conspiracy theory tames the great chaos around us, which is the likely explanation for these implausible ideas. It’s easier to blame the imagined secret machinations of influential people, serving dark agendas, than admitting life can be a cruel beast."

Possible Preaching Angle:

People are tempted to believe a lie when the truth challenges our false beliefs. People want to believe that good things happen to good people and bad things to bad people. People want to believe they we are able to be good. But none of that is true. But, as followers of Christ, we have something far more trustworthy to tame the great chaos around us.

The next time LeQuedra Edwards unexpectedly bumps into someone, she might expect more than just an awkward situation. Because her last unexpected bump resulted in some very good fortune. Edwards was in a convenience store when she spent $40 on a lottery vending machine. However, when she went to make her selection, a rude patron bumped into her, causing her to push an unintended number on the machine. Edwards said, “He just bumped into me, didn't say a thing and just walked out the door.”

Instead of spending money on several lower-priced tickets as usual, she ended up spending most of her money on a $30 Scratchers ticket. But her irritation quickly faded after she went to the car, scratched off the numbers on her ticket, and realized that she’d won the grand prize of $10 million.

She said, "I didn't really believe it at first, but I got on the freeway and kept looking down at (the ticket) and I almost crashed my car. I pulled over, looked at it again and again, scanned it with my app and I just kept thinking, 'This can't be right.'"

According to the news release, Edwards plans to use her winnings to buy a house and launch a nonprofit organization.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Even our accidents can be redeemed by God for our good.