From a heart of stone to a heart of flesh

During my evening shift at our local hospital, I attempted to visit 66-year-old Richard. I introduced myself as the hospital’s volunteer chaplain and offered to visit. To my surprise he vigorously gestured for me to leave, saying: “I don’t want to see any chaplain.” Then he took a second look and asked, “Jude, is that you, the CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) member that I knew from years ago?” He invited me back into his world but refused any prayer or Scripture. I visited him weekly until he was well enough to return home.

A month later the hospital’s director of chaplains called. The family wanted me to know that Richard was not likely to live beyond the week. I saw him that day and followed up each day that week. I had the privilege of journeying with him through the valley of the shadow of death.
Richard spent his life helping others; he was spending his final days being helped by others.

He endeavored to beat cancer, but it beat him. It humbled a fiercely independent man who always had to have things his way, a stubborn man with a heart of stone.

Tearfully, he told me that the previous week he had entered the hospital chapel to pray, to surrender his life to Christ. He realized that he could no longer control his life and collapsed in the arms of his Savior, who had been pursuing him his whole life.

God used Richard’s physical sickness of leukemia to heal his spiritual sickness of sin.

Isaiah prophesied about the Messiah: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out” (42:3).

God says in Ezekiel: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (36:26). “For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!” (18:32).

Richard did repent and was born again in that hospital chapel. Meanwhile, in heaven’s chapel, “…there is more rejoicing…over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent” (Luke 15:7).

This once lost, now found sinner wrote a testimony that revealed his changed heart toward his wife and his life. He was moved to tears of joy, mingled with tears of repentance, every time he heard his Christian wife’s voice. Julia had made a commitment to her husband, for better or worse, and had kept that commitment for 43 years, despite many difficulties. He was overwhelmed with her legacy of undeserved love, like that of his Savior.

At Julia’s request, I conducted Richard’s funeral service, where those who had come to mourn heard of the joy that awaits those who repent and turn to Christ.

Jude Peck is a member at Hope, Irmo, S. C. He serves as a volunteer hospital chaplain and a paid hospice chaplain in the Columbia area. To learn more about WELS chaplain certification, visit wels.net/chaplain.