Guard Your Heart
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.—Proverb s 4:23 (ESV)
The Lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.—PSALM 145:14 (NIV)
Near sunrise, I slipped into the living room to check on my husband, John, asleep in his recliner. As John’s cancer
progressed, he preferred the recliner to our bed. I found him flat on his back on the floor. I shook him gently. “Honey, what happened?”
John’s eyes opened. “In the middle of the night, my chair lifted me up and dumped me out.”
“That seems unlikely,” I said.
“Can you help me sit up?” John was a big guy, and I hadn’t much strength. I eased one of his pillows under his back. That helped, so I added another one, and then a chair cushion until John was propped up, but not upright. “Lord, please help me,” I prayed silently.
A scene from a TV Western flashed in my mind. A cowboy perched, in peril, on the windowsill of a burning building. His options: death or escape. Frantically, he grabbed bed sheets, knotting them into a ladder. I could do the same. I tied sheets together and wrapped them around a sturdy chair. Hand over hand, John hoisted himself to a sitting position.
“Thanks, babe.” John chuckled. “Never realized you were such a clever mechanic until you invented the pillow jack.” We shared a good laugh. Despite tough circumstances, we were still a great team.
Holy Spirit, thank you for times when humor gives us a helping hand. Amen.
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.—Proverb s 4:23 (ESV)
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.—1 Corinthians 10:31 (NIV)
And the Lord answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.”—Habakkuk 2:2 (ESV)