Moses: A Man of Selfless Dedication

by Charles R. Swindoll

When I first began driving to my hospital office in 1966, I noticed a nice-looking young man who invariably stood at the window of an old apartment house, which is located across the street from the doctors’ parking lot. Morning after morning this same man, whom I would judge to have been in his middle forties, appeared at the same open window as I drove past. He was always there when I went home at the end of the day as well. I began to wave or smile to the man in the window, and he would return my greeting with a similar gesture. Though it seems unlikely, we developed a friendship in the absence of any personal knowledge of one another, without a single conversation between us. My curiosity finally compelled me to get better acquainted with the man behind the smile. One noontime I walked from my office to the building where my congenial friend lived and climbed a dark stairway to the second floor. I knocked on the door, and it was opened by “the man in the window.” He introduced himself as Tommy and invited me to come into his two-room apartment. During the next hour he told me his story. He had been a successful executive until devastated by a massive coronary thrombosis about six years earlier. His heart ailments were compounded by emphysema and other physical disorders, which prevented his engaging in any form of work. I also noticed that his right arm was deformed, being much smaller than his left. Tommy, I learned, was rarely able to leave that tiny apartment. He wa...