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The day is over, you are driving home. You tune in your
radio. You hear a little blurb about a little village in
India where some villagers have died suddenly,
strangely, of a flu that has never been seen before.
It’s not influenza, but three or four fellows are dead,
and it’s kind of interesting. They’re sending some
doctors over there to investigate it. You don’t think
much about it, but on Sunday, coming home from
church, you hear another radio spot. Only they say it’s
not three villagers, it’s 30,000 villagers in the back
hills of this particular area of India, and it’s on TV
that night.
CNN runs a little blurb; people are heading there from
the disease center in Atlanta because this disease
strain has never been seen before.
By Monday morning when you get up, it’s the lead story.
For it’s not just India; it’s Pakistan, Afghanistan,
Iran, and before you know it, you’re hearing this story
everywhere and they have coined it now as “the mystery
flu.”
The President has made some comment that he and everyone
are praying and hoping that all will go well over there.
But everyone is wondering, “How are we going to contain
it?” That’s when the President of France makes an
announcement that shocks Europe. He is closing their
borders. No flights from India, Pakistan, or any of the
countries where this thing has been seen.
That night you are watching a little bit of CNN before
going to bed. Your jaw hits your chest, when a weeping
woman is translated from a French news program into
English: “There’s a man lying in a hospital in Paris
dying of the mystery flu. It has come to Europe.” Panic
strikes.
As best they can tell, once you get it, you have it for
a week and you don’t know it. Then you have four days of
unbelievable symptoms. Then you die.
Britain closes it’s borders, but it’s too late.
Southampton, Liverpool, Northhampton, and it’s Tuesday
morning when the President of the United States makes
the following announcement: “Due to a national security
risk, all flights to and from Europe and Asia have been
canceled. If your loved ones are overseas, I’m sorry.
They cannot come back until we find a cure for this
thing.
Within four days our nation has been plunged into an
unbelievable fear. People are selling little masks for
your face. Some are talking about what if it comes to
this country, and preachers on Tuesday are saying, “It’s
the scourge of God.” It’s Wednesday night and you are at
a church prayer meeting when somebody runs in from the
parking lot and says, “Turn on a radio, turn on a
radio.” 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 the 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.
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 spouse 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 that 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 with a grin, “Daddy, that’s me.”
Before you know it, they have grabbed your boy. “Wait a
minute, hold it!” 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. But then the grayhaired doctor
pulls you and your wife aside and says, “May we see you
for a 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 is empty. “H-h-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 a
little child. We weren’t prepared. We need it all!”
“But -but...” “You don’t understand. We are talking
about the world here. Please sign. We - we need it all
-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 your son?” You go into that room
where he sits on a table saying, “Daddy? Mommy? What’s
going on?”
Can you take his hands and say, “Son, we love you, and
we would never ever let anything happen to you that
didn’t just have to be. Do you understand that?”
When that old doctor comes back in and says, “I’m sorry,
we’ve -we’ve got to get started. People all over the
world are dying.” Can you leave? Can you walk out while
he is saying, “Dad? Mom? Why - why have you forsaken
me?”
And then next week, when they have the ceremony to honor
your son, some folks sleep through it, and some folks
don’t even come because they go to the lake, and some
folks come with a pretentious attitude.
“MY SON DIED! DON’T YOU CARE?”
Is that what God may be saying? “MY SON DIED. 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. Amen “
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