We had just met Sam a few weeks before. He lived in a nursing home and was a new roommate to someone we knew who we were helping to become accustomed to his new surroundings. Suddenly Sam had to go to the hospital for a few days. Having worked with other nursing home patients we knew that probably nobody would visit him. So, we found out where he was and went to visit him. He had only been with the person we knew for a few weeks but he had already been affected by our friend who was a believer. He had started watching religious broadcasts on his TV. He was an older man and as a result had lost aged parents and had one remaining sibling who lived a great distance away from him.
When we walked in, his face lit up like a Christmas tree. He had been there 4 days without one visitor but was recovering from the reason that brought him there. He was so excited to see us and expressed his appreciation. He was a simple fellow but expressed himself very loudly and with a big smile of appreciation. We talked for a bit and then he asked my wife who is of the same age,
“What is it like being 70 years old?”
She thought a moment and said confidently, “Sam, I’m just getting closer to seeing my Jesus”.
With that he smiled broadly. His face lit up even more and I asked him, “Sam, do you know Jesus?”
He said “Yes” and smiled.
I asked, “What happened?”
He simply said, “A few days ago I just told him, Jesus, Please come in”.
I asked, “What happened then?”
He replied, “He just came in”. Tears filled our eyes with joy.
The story which preceded this moment to bring these two together as roommates was a very difficult process that God had engineered. As I looked back on all that had happened, I marveled at the fact that God was in every moment of the difficulty so that He could bring Sam into His eternal family.
As a few years have gone by and our relationship together has continued to grow. Sam struggles with his handicaps and the fact that he cannot and probably never will walk again. But we talk often about heaven and what it will be like there. We tell him he will run and fly and will know the author and finisher of his faith, Jesus Christ, and we will be together for eternity. He faithfully attends our weekly Bible study, asks a lot of questions, tells a lot of Dad jokes, struggles at times but he’s one of His kids forever.
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