Years ago, when I was a young man, you might have found me lying drunk all night in the streets or out in the fields. Many a time I lay all night in the cold and wet—homeless, hopeless—drunken—not able to make my way to any kind of shelter. That’s how the devil serves his children!
But that couldn’t last, strong as I was. Exposure and continual drunkenness at last wrecked what had once been a fine, husky body, and I was laid low by disease. My old pals took me to a doctor, but he told us all plainly that I was so far gone there was positively no hope. Another doctor repeated the verdict. As a last hope they took me to a hospital. There they said I was incurable and refused to admit me.
At last they sent for the religious people. They prayed and pleaded with me, but I angrily pushed them away and told them to go. I had served the devil all my life, and I would serve him in death too.
But after all the doctors had given their verdicts, there came to me the Great Physician, and He began to mend my poor body in spite of the doctors and their opinions. In a few days I was feeling like a new man, but still weak.
Well, I sat there in my weakness and thought of God’s goodness and mercy to me, a hell-deserving sinner. But He had thought it worthwhile to heal me up a bit and give me strength to live a little longer here. Then I thought, “Well, He has a right to me altogether, and I think it worthwhile to trust Him.” This I did, and He took me as I was, there and then. I got rapidly better, and all these years He has kept me. I have seen many sorrows and gone through deep waters, but He has been my refuge and has upheld me by His grace.