A Bump In The Road
Three years ago on March 12 Good News, Etc. was kind
enough to honor my 90th birthday. It was an expression of warm friendship by
your Editor and was much appreciated.
Now the day has rolled around again. Meanwhile on the Fourth of July, 2003, my friend Richard and
I climbed Tiger Mountain. Three
months later I faced another mountain which I am finding hard to climb. It
happens to be a stroke that hit me.
I was taken
to a hospital and then to a center for convalescents, where I spent 44 days.
Now I am home, and learning a lot about the medical cause of stroke.
Instead of
climbing a cliff, I am now pouring oxygen into my body in a careful effort to
replace the strength that vanished with the stroke on Oct. 3. In my reading I
learned that if I had taken my way to the right hospital and doctor in less
than three hours of the stroke itself, that doctor might have been able to
remove the clot that was impeding the flow of blood in my brain, about which at
the time I knew nothing.
Somehow that
cleared me from thinking that God chose not to intervene miraculously in my
problem. He stayed out of it simply because He had preferred His own way, which
was as good if not better. Actually during this period Ruth and I read the
Bible daily and it became to us more precious than ever as our faith took a big
jump. Praise the Lord! One passage
has been special:
In
Paul’s Letter to the Philippians we find a description of Jesus as being
a “sweet-smelling aroma, well pleasing to God.” It whispered a fresh concept of my
Lord. It brought out the poetry
that lies deep in every human being.
It
whispers HIS PRESENCE is somewhere nearby.
No
vision, no voicing, but God’s Son is nigh. No king who demands His place
at the Head, No leader who talks, but forgets what He said;
No ruler
who rules by the feelings He felt
No savage
who reigned with the sword and the belt
Just
blossoms and fragrance and sweetened delight
And a
promise of something far better tonight.
Author Sherwood Wirt is editor emeritus of Decision magazine.