A Soul Cast Away

“25  For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?” Luke 9:25

The past few days the news has been humming about the death of a national figure, I guess, who saw both poverty and wealth.  When I turned on Fox News on my XM Radio Friday morning before work, they were buzzing about this woman’s death.  So, Anna who????   I know who she is now, but I’ll have to confess I didn’t before she died.  She was someone a kin to Marylyn Monroe who, as I remember very well because we were on a vacation in Chicago at the time, died of an overdose of sleeping pills the summer of my fourth grade year, 1962.  

I’ll not go into the story of Anna N. Smith’s life as you can Google it on the Internet and read a summary of her life at your leisure.  I’ll not bore you with the details only that she was a stripper, model, actress of sorts, heiress, and tabloid queen.  Yet, America seems obsessed with her death like couch potatoes watching a soap opera.  Even the conservative shows are playing this big and spending more time on it than anything else for now.  Why!  Because it sells and it is what the American people want.  This shows our culture.  We have a woman who has left a 5 month child and no one knows who the daddy is.  Her life was so tangled that she remarked recently, "Everyone in my life has stabbed me in my back," she said. "It's always a battle."  Hers was the death of a woman who had briefly tasted both wealth and fame and failed to cling on to either.  

Unless she was able to repent, she is no longer enjoying what life had to offer.  She tried to gain the world but lost out in the end.  Princess Di lost out, fleeing the very thing she once taunted and flirted with, the cameras.  Unless either of these repented, they are lost now!  This should be a lesson for us all.  Money, fame, and success as far as this word’s concerned is not the end of the matter.  The wise man gave us this admonishment.  “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” Ecclesiastes 12:13   To fear God is to know and live for his Son, Jesus Christ who said, “And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”  Luke 9:23

When you go to Anna Nicole Smith’s website now, at least at this posting, you’ll only see a picture with a woman in a scant dress with dates underneath – 1967 – 2007.  “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” James 4:14  “Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.” Amos 4:12