I like using the YouVersion app for reading the Bible. One feature is a daily verse.  Today’s verse reads:

Hebrews 13:16 “And do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for God is pleased with such sacrifices.” (NET)

The book of Hebrews was my father’s favorite book of the Bible. He would read it every day. Because he had MS that became more of a challenge as the disease progressed. MS made it hard for him to be a father to me. I had my own challenge as a hearing-impaired child. So my mother became like a single-parent, caring for us kids, but also caring for her husband. 

The verse is really talking about love because if you have love, you do good, and share what you have. At first, my mother started working to support the family when my father could no longer work. Then, as his MS continued to get worse, he went from walker to wheel chair to bedridden. It is out of my mother’s love for her husband, my father, that she took over his care. She did not neglect to do good and she shared her life with him as long as she could. I am certain her sacrifices pleased God.

My mother almost sacrificed her life for him. One day she had an heart attack trying to lift him from wheel chair to bed. No one else was there, but somehow my mother was able to get to the hospital. It was a mild attack, if there really is such a thing. She was fortunate, or more truthfully God watched over her. It was time for them to make a decision.  It was not long afterwards that my father moved to a nursing home. My mother continued to do good and shared of herself by visiting my father every day. God was pleased with her sacrifices.

All that happened many years ago. My father managed to live long enough to see my fiance, but he died two days later. It was an emotional time for all of us. Many years later, my wife and I are growing old together. We try to do good every day and find ways to share of ourselves. Why? Because God is pleased with such sacrifices. Someday, it may happen that one of us will need to take over health care needs for the other. Only God knows that. Love does not worry about the cost, but pleasing God. He sent his only Son, Jesus, to be born on Earth, grow up as a man without sin, then dying on the Cross to pay the price for our sins. He was buried and three days later he arose from the dead. Proof that he was God. Our love and sacrifice will always pale compared to God. We come to trust God for all things because of his great love and sacrifice for us. Amen.