Astronaut's Deathbed
This Week's Theme: Good Friends
Charles Colson
Thursday, October 12, 2000
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Key Bible Verse: "'I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me'" (Matthew 25:36b).
Bonus Reading:Luke 10:25-37
Jack Swigert, the man who'd piloted the Apollo 13 lunar mission and was now Congressman-elect from Colorado's 6th Congressional District, lay critically ill in the oncology unit at Georgetown University Hospital. A tall, quiet visitor sat in the spot he'd occupied almost every night since Swigert had been admitted. Bill Armstrong, Senator from Colorado, was here as a committed Christian and as Swigert's friend.
Bill spoke quietly. "Jack, God loves you. I love you. You're surrounded by friends who are praying for you. You're going to be all right." The only response was Jack's tortured and uneven breathing.
Bill pulled his chair closer to the bed and opened his Bible. "Psalm 23," he began to read. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want .
" Time passed. "Psalm 150," Bill began, then his skin prickled. Jack's ragged breathing had stopped. He knew there was nothing more he could do.
As chairman of the Senate subcommittee handling social security, Armstrong was one of the busiest, most powerful men in Washington. Yet it never occurred to him that he was too busy to be at the hospital. He was just a friend fulfilling a responsibility he wouldn't delegate or shirk.
Charles Colson in Loving God Respond:
Who needs you right now? Thought to Apply:
Friendship without self-interest is one of the rare and beautiful things of life.
James F. Byrnes (politician, administrator)
Adapted from Walking with Loving God (Zondervan, 1983). 1 of 1
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Jesus, thank you for the blessing of friends. Give me Your love for my brothers.
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