For many months this husband...
Illustration
For many months this husband has lain sick with a disease so fearful that, even in our modern age, we hesitate to call it by its name. His wife has watched her once strong man slowly but surely waste away. Once so full of life and ambition, his world has shrunk to a hospital bed bounded by siderails. Everything is strange: the bed on which he lies; the bottles that hang above; the food he struggles to eat; the curtains and the ceiling and the walls. Even the doctors, who come briefly, confer quietly together, and then depart. Only one thing in this man's life is reassuring and familiar: his wife who sits by his side. Week after week, she never misses a day. From their home it's a twenty-mile round trip. She drives it in good weather and bad to be with her man. Because he needs her. She gives him the best gift possible -- the comfort of her presence. Forty-seven years ago these two stood before God's altar and promised to be faithful to each other "for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part." As they keep this promise through the decades, and as we watch them and countless other couples do the same, we thrill to the glory of the ancient words: "Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good that a man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.' " -- Mason
(Reprinted from October 1988 Emphasis.)
(Reprinted from October 1988 Emphasis.)
