A visit with Max, the man of faith

Carol was laughing. "Maybe you can talk some sense into him, Max." She handed me the phone.

"I'm done talkin'," he said, "I'll beat it into you."

"I wish you would!" I said. "In fact, I'd like to come over so you can do that for me. But we don't know how to get there."

The key was this: he lived on Cypress Way, not Cypress Street.

A few minutes later, we parked on the street and there he was, smiling and wheeling toward us in his electrically-powered chair. Vera was inside, and their daughter Judy had just arrived.

Soon we heard about wonderful things God did for them. They hadn't been doing well in their house, and were ready to move into a senior living center or something. Judy didn't think so. "You're doing fine," she told them.

But Max straightened her out. "We are dying. I weigh 128 pounds now."

Soon she relented. They visited a nice-looking senior residence, put down a deposit, and proceeded to wait a lot longer than they'd been led to expect. Meanwhile, son-in-law Jason had apparently heard something he didn't like about this place. He paid them a visit and started asking pointed questions about elder abuse.

Well, that was the end of that possibility; they found another senior residence, which is working out much better. When Vera fell in a doorway, both she and Max had call buttons hanging from their necks, and Max was able to summon help immediately.

At the other place, you had to make your way over to a cord hanging from a certain place on the wall. If the cord was in the other room, and your unconscious wife was in the doorway where your walker couldn't get over her -- well, I can't imagine what that would have been like.

At the hospital, the doctor told them to take Vera to this rehab center or that one -- nowhere else! Turns out that one of the executive directors or something at their residence knew someone at that rehab center. She got a bed by the window.

Now about their house: they had to sell it to pay the costs of the senior residence. They put it on the market, which had already started to decline. And I guess with the expenses of moving and all, they were behind on their giving. Max said, "Let's pay our tithe once we sell the house."

But the house didn't sell and didn't sell -- not even a nibble -- and after a while Max decided he couldn't stand it any longer. "I couldn't sleep," he said. So he told Judy to just write the check, come what may.

She dropped the check into the plate on Sunday morning; Monday there were four offers on the house.

For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.

from 2 Chronicles 16