Carly Shaffer and her four-year-old daughter, Ella, were attending a birthday party for a friend’s daughter.  While at the party, Shaffer heard her daughter yell.

“From far away, in the noise and chaos of many kids happily playing and adults laughing and chatting, I heard her cry out.  [It was] not much different than a cry of annoyance that told me maybe her brother took her shovel, or her sister took her ball. [You] know, the usual yells.  But I just knew.  I KNEW something was wrong,” explained Shaffer on a Facebook post.

Ella had been standing on the stairs of a backyard pool, promising not to leave the ladder.  Then she saw a beautiful doll in the middle of the pool.  She dove in to get it.  Ella, who doesn’t know how to swim, was literally in over her head.  She yelled out.  Her mother heard her and came running.

“My heart was in my stomach as I was running to her, watching her bob up and down in the water, choking,” Shaffer wrote on Facebook.

Before her mother could get to her, a man dove into the water to rescue Ella.  Shaffer described the man and his heroic actions: “A man I briefly met, 5 min[utes] prior had made it to her first.  She was taking in water and surely would have drowned.  He drove in, fully dressed, shoes and all, over the side of the pool for a kid he didn't even know.  A kid he's not related to.  A kid he's never met.  He saved my kid’s life.”

The man was Paul Munding, an off-duty police officer for the Clarkstown Police Department.  Shaffer – and many others – are calling him “a hero.” *

We are much like Ella.  We get enraptured with the things of the world and end up “getting in over our heads.”  We are drowning in our sins in desperate need of rescue.

But Someone we did not know came to our rescue.  He was “fully dressed” as a man, but our Rescuer was actually God in the flesh (John 1:14), Jesus.  Our salvation required His death on the cross for our sins (1 Peter 1:18-19).  This He did for you and me so that we can be saved and receive the gift of eternal life (Ephesians 1:7).

God will save and give eternal life to those who place their faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from their sins in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).  He will continue to cleanse from sin those who continue to walk in the light of His Word (1 John 1:7-9).

Jesus “gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to Whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen” (Galatians 1:4-5).

Won’t YOU allow Jesus to save you by placing your faith in Him through your trusting obedience?

-- David A. Sargent

* Information gleaned from “New York police officer saves 4-year-old from drowning in backyard pool” by Robert Gearty, www.foxnews.com.

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David A. Sargent, Minister

Church of Christ at Creekwood 
1901 Schillinger Rd. S.
Mobile, Alabama  36695

Archived issues of Living Water can be viewed and accessed from our website at: www.creekwoodcc.org