This happened more than ten years ago. After a prolonged illness, my father-in-law departed into eternity. His final months were spent in a hospice program. It was a difficult period in our lives, but the Lord helped us through it all.
God's mercy and grace were especially evident that April day when my father-in-law's life slowly faded away. A chaplain named Jim Sheridan came to share our family's grief.
He entered the room where a life had just ceased. He was a tall, elderly man with a loud, confident voice. His genuine smile and inner peace transmitted to us as well. Jim handled all necessary documentation. He asked if we believed in God, and when he learned we were Christians, he rejoiced greatly and told us his own conversion story. Then he asked how each of us had turned to the Lord. Jim spoke with the children too, asking if they loved God and had given their hearts to Him.
That morning he sang to many Christians the song "Amazing Grace!"
Our hearts overflowed with joy at the awareness of God's mercy and hope for a blessed reunion in Heaven with our Lord and loved ones who knew Christ. Before leaving, Jim gave us his business card and asked us to call him when our children decided to repent and be baptized.
A few years later we met Jim in one of the stores. He had changed somewhat and looked tired. He said he had suffered a stroke. He was unable to attend our son's baptism.
A few years later our daughter was baptized, but by then I couldn't find the card Jim had left.
This past spring we met Jim again in that same store. We approached him, and he immediately remembered us. It turned out he had recently suffered a heart attack. But despite all his illnesses and infirmities, he continues to preach, lead small groups in his church, and helps three times a week (now as a volunteer chaplain) in the hospice program. Jim is seventy-eight years old, but he remains energetic in the Lord, as always, to carry His Gospel to the dying. We showed him photographs of our children and told him they had accepted the Lord as their Savior. We invited Jim to our worship service. He agreed, and has already preached several times in our church in English.
Jim told us his story. He was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Sherman Oaks, California. He was an only child. His mother worked as a school principal, and his father didn't finish tenth grade, but considered himself, according to Jim, the smartest in their family.
Jim grew up with people who later became movie stars and appeared on television. He always loved sports and music. He wasn't very diligent in school. After high school he entered college, then was drafted into the army.
Jim recalls: "In the early stages of military training, I was very rebellious because I didn't want to serve, especially not in Vietnam. Because of my attitude toward service, I quarreled with one of my leaders. We decided to settle the quarrel with a boxing match, which I lost. I felt alone, far from home, and it seemed certain I would die in Vietnam. The next day I went to church to wash up in the restroom. Then I went into the chapel where a service was being held. Most of my life I had attended church, but didn't know God personally. I usually didn't listen to the sermon. The same happened that time. Sitting in the chapel, I noticed the sermon bored me. I started looking through a hymnal and reading songs I knew from childhood. I found the song 'Jesus Loves Me.' I read it again and again and noticed that one verse I read wasn't in the hymnal we used at home. These lines said: 'He will wash away your sins.' I began to think about this and realized I had asked Jesus many times to forgive me. But further in the song it said: 'Let his little child come in.' I never fully understood what this meant. In my senior year I had several very good Christian friends. They always talked about being 'born again,' but it was all unclear to me. I didn't want to ask, lest I seem foolish…
So, reading those hymn words in the chapel: 'Let his little child come in,' I simply put my head in my hands and prayed: 'Dear Lord, I've ruined my life trying to do things my way instead of how You wanted. If You will enter my life, I will faithfully serve You till the end.' At that moment I thought I had to be good enough for Christ to dwell in my heart. But at that very moment Jesus entered my life and completely changed it. I no longer felt alone. I didn't understand much in theology, but I knew for certain that I needed a Savior.
My attitude toward the army changed through my personal relationship with Christ. I began to realize I was living for Jesus. A radical change occurred in me. And although I don't always live up to what Jesus wants from me, He still hasn't abandoned me and has been guiding me for more than fifty-six years now. He is the only One who can fulfill His promises...'"
So Jim gave his life to the Lord when he turned twenty-one, on May 14, 1965, during basic military training at Fort Polk, Louisiana.
In 1973 he married. He completed seminary in Denver in 1976. He was a pastor in Klamath Falls, Oregon, immediately after seminary. For many years he served in missionary fields in various countries around the world. Jim and his wife Sandy have three biological children. When their firstborn was two years old, the couple began caring for eleven foster children (almost all of them victims of sexual abuse in their families).
Jim Sheridan became a chaplain at hospice in 2007, completing his residency at Sutter Hospital. He worked with families, especially in those days when someone was terminally ill or had died, to help them cope with the grief of loss. Now Jim says he will never retire. He continues to perform chaplaincy work, but now as a volunteer, because "so many people need Christ in their final hours of life… Many of them struggle with thoughts of suicide…"
Each week Jim personally teaches a group of men a discipleship course he developed himself. He helps people who call themselves Christians but have become trapped in various addictions.
Jim feels genuine joy in evangelism and discipleship. He believes that every Christian born of God is obligated to always share testimony of how the Lord found and saved him: "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear" (1 Peter 3:15).
When you listen to Jim Sheridan's testimony and his sermons, the words from Psalm 92:12-15 come alive in memory: "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing; To shew that the Lord is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him."
