HOSPITAL CHAIRS

Pastor Art Watkins of Coden Bible Church (Coden, Alabama)

November 5, 2015

Have you ever slept in a hospital chair? I have on many occasions. My father spent weeks in the hospital before he died in 1970. I sat with him and slept in a chair during that time. My son was put in the hospital on 3 occasions in 2001 with cancer and I sat with him and slept in a hospital chair for weeks. My wife was placed in the hospital recently with A-Fib. It took 6 hours in the ER for her heart rate to go down. I slept in the chair beside her.

Hospital chairs are not comfortable. You must put them against the wall so you can lean your head backwards against the wall otherwise your head will fall forward. They always give me a crick in the neck. The sleep is not sound. You do not wake up feeling refreshed. There is always a nurse who wakes you up every two hours to take the vital signs of the patient. You must remain motionless when sleeping in a hospital chair otherwise you will fall on the floor. They make hospital chairs hard and uncomfortable so you will cut your visit short. If you are overweight you must learn to balance yourself when you sleep in them for they are never wide enough. It takes about two good nights of sleep in a real bed at home to get over the hangover of sleeping in a hospital chair. As I write this article I am aware of the fact that there are many people suffering in a hospital chair right now. The chair I sat in someone else is occupying now and everything thing I suffered in that chair they are suffering now.

Hospital chairs remind me of the indisputable fact that there are many times in our lives that we must sit in hospital chairs. We all have a hospital chair that we must sit in, a chair that is very uncomfortable. I speak of the periods of tribulation, pain, sorrow, sickness, and sufferings we are appointed unto in the Christian life.

If things are going well with you now, be glad and rejoice, but rest assured there is a hospital chair in your future that is going to be hard, uncomfortable that will make you weary. Be also aware of the fact that there are many Christians who are sitting in hospital chairs now that need someone like you to sit down next to them and calm and comfort them with your presence. You can make their chair more bearable.

In closing remember this also; even though hospital chairs are uncomfortable they sit next to people in hospital beds that are suffering more that the one in the chair. There is always someone who is suffering more than you.