Intensive Care
Theme of the Week: A Man's Caring Side
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
 1 of 1
Key Bible Verse: If we love each other, God lives in us, and his love has been brought to full expression through us (1 John 4:12).Bonus Reading: 1 John 4:11-12, 16-17
No one knows why he fell. My neighbor, Frank Syverson, was lying in a bed in the ICU at Northern Michigan Hospital. I stopped in to see him in spite of the family-members-only policy. His wife, Helen, waved us in when she saw my wife Jane standing at the door. We've been friends and neighbors for almost 30 years. Family enough.
Frank and another World War II veteran buddy were fund-raising, selling paper poppies at a local mall. Twenty minutes into the sale, Frank fell backwards. Uncharacteristically, he made no attempt to break the fall. His head hit the concrete hard. It took 15 stitches to close the wound. But the greater damage was the force of the blow to his brain. The internal cranial swelling could be fatal.
Frank was lying in a semi-coma, his hands and legs restrained. I picked up his left hand, squeezed it gently. His fingers searched for my fingers, found them, squeezed back. This giant of a man, eyes closed, fighting for his life, held my hand like a child.
At that moment, I realized I am a member of a larger "intensive care unit," those who follow Jesus. God was using my hand to hold Frank's. Man to man, I think Frank understood.
—Clifford Denay Jr.
My Response: Who might sense God's love through my being there this week?
Thought to Apply: A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.—Walter Winchell (journalist & broadcaster)
Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity. 1 of 1
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Lord, I want to replicate your tough but tender love in my world. Please teach me how.
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