Monday, April 05, 2004
It's a Monday night and you are at a church prayer meeting when somebody runs in from the parking lot yelling, "Turn on a radio, turn on a radio!"
And while the church listens to a little transistor radio with a microphone stuck up to it, the announcement is made: "Two women are lying in a Long Island hospital dying from a 'mystery' flu." Within hours it seems, this thing just sweeps across the country.
People are working around the clock trying to find an antidote. Nothing is working! California, Oregon, Arizona, Florida, Massachusetts.
It's as though it's just sweeping in from the borders.
And then, all of a sudden, the news comes out. The code has been broken. A cure can be found. A vaccine can be made. It's going to take the blood of somebody who hasn't been infected, and so, sure enough,all through the Midwest, through all those channels of emergency broadcasting,
everyone is asked to do one simple thing: Go to your downtown hospital and have your blood type taken. That's all we ask of you. When you hear the sirens go off in your neighborhood, please make your way quickly, quietly, and safely to the hospitals.
Sure enough, when you and your family get down there late on that Friday night, there is a long line, and they've got nurses and doctors coming out and pricking fingers and taking blood and putting labels on it.
Your wife and your kids are out there, and they take your blood type and they say, "Wait here in the parking lot and if we call your name, you can be dismissed and go home."
You stand around, scared, with your neighbors, wondering what in the world is going on and if this is the end of the world.
Suddenly a young man comes running out of the hospital screaming. He's yelling a name and waving a clipboard. What? He yells it again! And your son tugs on your jacket and says, "Daddy, that's me."
Before you know it, they have grabbed your boy. Wait a minute!
Hold on! And they say, "It's okay, his blood is clean. His blood is pure.
We want to make sure he doesn't have the disease. We think he has got the right type." Five tense minutes later, out come the doctors and nurses, crying and hugging one another ... some are even laughing. It's the first time you have seen anybody laugh in a week, and an old doctor walks up to you and says, "Thank you, sir. Your son's blood type is perfect. It's clean, it is pure, and we can make the vaccine." As the word begins to spread all across that parking lot full of folks, people are screaming and praying and laughing and crying.
Then the gray-haired doctor pulls you and your wife aside and says, "May we see you for moment? We didn't realize that the donor would be a minor and we need ...... we need you to sign a consent form." You begin to sign and then you see that the number of pints of blood to be taken has been left blank.
"H-how many pints?", you ask.
And that is when the old doctor's smile fades and he says, "We had no idea it would be little child. We weren't prepared. I'm sorry sir, we need it all!"
"But but .. You don't understand."
"We are talking about the world here. Please sign. We need it all!"
"But can't you give him a transfusion?"
"If we had clean blood we would. Can you sign? Would you sign?"
In numb silence, you do.
Then they say, "Would you like to have a moment with him before we begin?"
Can you walk back? Can you walk back to that room where he sits on a table saying, "Daddy? Mommy? What's going on?" Can you take his hands and say, "Son, your mommy and I love you, and we would never ever let anything happen to you that didn't just have to be. Do you understand that?"
And when that old doctor comes back in and says, "I'm sorry, we've GOT to get started! People all over the world are dying.
Can you leave?"
Can you walk out while he is saying, "Daddy? Mommy? Daddy?
"Why, why have you forsaken me?"
And then next week, when they have the ceremony to honor your son some folks sleep through it ... some folks don't even come because they go to the lake or the seashore ... some folks come with a pretentious smile and just "pretend" to care. Would you want to jump up and say, "MY SON DIED FOR YOU! DON'T YOU CARE?"
Is that what GOD wants to say? "MY SON DIED FOR YOU. DON'T YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I CARE?"
"FATHER, Seeing it from YOUR eyes breaks our hearts. Maybe now we can begin to comprehend the great Love YOU have for us."
etched at 10:04 PM