"I realized that if God sacrificed his only Son to save me, how can I think about suicide?"
Mr. Hildobrando had been through what people often refer to as a rough patch. During his wife's battle against cancer, he had spent a lot of time with her at the Hospital Beneficência Portuguesa in the city of Pelotas. Last year his wife lost her battle with the disease.
"After my wife was gone, I was so sad, and this drove me to thoughts of suicide," he recalls.
At the hospital Hildobrando and his wife had met Pastor Adelar Munieweg, who serves in the Chaplaincy with Jesus program of Lutheran Hour Ministries—Brazil (Hora Luterana). Pastor Adelar had given them a copy of Hora Luterana's Five Minutes with Jesus devotional series. Even though Hildobrando was not a Christ-follower, he read the meditations to his wife daily, and they had brought her comfort and strength—and hope for eternal life with Jesus.
Despite the grief and despair he felt at the loss of his wife, Hildobrando went back to the Five Minutes with Jesus devotions. And that's when he discovered God's great gift in the sacrifice of His only Son—grace not just for his wife, but for him too.
"Reading this book—along with the other information Pastor Adelar had shared with us—I saw that I was wrong to think about taking my own life," he says. "I miss my wife a lot and I get very sad when I think about her—but I also know God is with me, and when I die, there's an eternal life waiting for me, just as it was waiting for my wife."
When Mr. Hildobrando finished reading all the Five Minutes with Jesus devotions for 2015, he wanted more.
"I didn't know how to get another devotional for 2016," he says—so he sought out Pastor Adelar, who was happy to provide him the latest Five Minutes with Jesus series!
To learn more about the Gospel outreach of LHM's Hora Luterana center in Brazil, visit lhmbrazil.wordpress.com.