It's been awhile since I've dared to ponder, dared to imagine, what it would be like to have a child, what it will be like to be a parent. The love I think I have now can't compare to the unfathomable love I'll experience when and if that day comes. If my heart leaps with joy at the smile of my niece, or jumps into my throat when my nephew chokes, how many thousands of times will those feelings be multiplied when it's my own child.
I know right now I would only be too grateful to be able to experience that parental love and drive to protect my child, so grateful to experience the normal worries and challenges that come with the territory of being called mom. Admittedly I probably don't see the world right now as a parent does. My perception of the economy, politics, health care, etc., is not seen through the filtered lens of responsibility for another helpless and innocent life.
Even though I want it just about more than anything, I can barely imagine what it must feel like as a parent watching the news about potential pandemic virus, H1N1. I can barely imagine what it would feel like if the baby I waited so long for might get exposed to something so scary. Or something worse. As our world ages, it is promised we will experience more pandemics, millions of people will die. My baby could be one of them.
What if tomorrow we heard about one such mystery illness? All over CNN we hear about it spreading rapidly across North America, then our whole continent, then the world. Would it make me regret bringing this much adored baby into the world? Would I trade the kind of heartache only motherhood could bring for the absence of that kind of love? I don't think I would. Even with the small glance into that kind of future we've had with H1N1, it's easy to see how the worry and the frustration would become almost all consuming, the world would be stricken with panic, normal life would seem to just about shut down as we all faced our own mortality, just the time I would need a love like that.
I would, as we all would, be praying for just one small ray of hope. And can you imagine the relief if that hope came true and a cure was found. A full cure, not just a vaccine, a cure that would eliminate any chance of further damage from this horrible, ravenous, disease. Whatever it took, the world would unite to make sure the cure became readily available to everyone, no matter the cost, financially, and likely even ethically. Normal regulatory, technical and manufacturing hurdles may be eliminated for the sake of the world. Millions of parents like me would make it so.
Imagine the only thing on our side is that the mysterious illness is slow, and so while death seems inevitable, at least the death toll is relatively low a few months down the road when a potential cure is found. They think they've found a way to use blood exposed to the disease but that for some reason doesn't get infected by it. They only managed to find one small sample of blood in all the blood banks that created this positive reaction in the disease, so immediately they begin asking people to be tested to find another, larger, blood source that could prove their theory they had found the cure. Time is still of the essence, so it is mandatory everyone is tested immediately, so that they have a higher chance of finding this blood sooner rather than later.
Imagine in every city, herded into every hospital and clinic, is every man, woman and child, including you. Including me and my precious baby. But we are all willing, for the sake of humanity we are willing. Yet, there we all are, standing around, scared, with our neighbors, wondering if this is the hope we've been praying for or if this will be the end of the world. And suddenly a name is called across the crowd. It's the name of my baby. I approach the one calling a name that sounded so sweet on any one's lips up until that moment. They take my approach as a sign of willingness and take my baby without a word. "Wait a minute. Hold on!" Five tense minutes later, out come the doctors and nurses, crying and hugging one another - some are even laughing. It's the first time I’ve seen anybody laugh in a few days, and an old doctor walks up to me and says, "Thank you! Your child's blood is the only sample in the whole world that has replicated the results of our test. It's clean, it is pure, and we can make the cure." 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 gray-haired doctor pulls me 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."
I begin to sign and then I see that the box for ordering the number of pints of blood to be taken is empty.
"H-how many pints?"
And that is when the old doctor's smile fades and he says,
"We had no idea it would be such 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!"
"But can't you give him a transfusion?"
"If we had clean blood we would. We don’t! This illness is out of control. Can you sign? Would you sign?"
"Can't we wait to see if anymore blood will surface?"
"At this point, 95% of the world has been tested, the likelyhood there is another source of blood that will work is too low, we have to act now."
My mind begins to fly to all the people in the world that don't deserve the blood of my innocent child, that my baby's life is worth so much more than theirs. I begin with "What if not everyone...."
But the doctor cuts me off, "Please ma'am, we don't have time to waste! We can't take a chance leaving anyone infected, or we'll be back in the same predicament in months."
My child has no future either way it would seem, and so in numb silence, I sign the documents. “I'm sorry, we've got to get started. People all over the world are dying." I'm allowed to stay long enough to say goodbye, which is probably for the best, because as they tear my flesh and blood from my arms, I already can't bare to look into the eyes that seem to scream, "why have you abandoned me, why now when I need you the most do you desert me?" And, as I turn away, part of me dies too.
I leave with the broken heart I knew I would one day experience, but I imagine I would have some peace knowing I had saved the world. Each person I pass on my way out, I search for a look of gratitude, but no one knows I am the mother who sacrificed her only child so they could live. Tomorrow, when all the newscasts and newspapers victoriously announce the survival of the human race, that's when appreciation for my sacrifice would start pouring in. And it does. But then, by the next week, when they have a ceremony to honor my child, not nearly as many people show up as I would have expected. I expected them ALL! I look across the sea of faces there for a chance to say thank you, gaining some comfort from them, until I see some who slip out the back before it's over, apparently there just for show. And I see some people half way through the 2 hour service who have fallen asleep, their new lease on life already past gratitude and on it's way to being abused again. I imagine I would want to jump up and say, "MY CHILD DIED FOR YOU! DON'T YOU CARE?"
Even though I want it just about more than anything, I can barely imagine what it must feel like as a parent watching the news about potential pandemic virus, H1N1. I can barely imagine what it would feel like if the baby I waited so long for might get exposed to something so scary. Or something worse. As our world ages, it is promised we will experience more pandemics, millions of people will die. My baby could be one of them.
What if tomorrow we heard about one such mystery illness? All over CNN we hear about it spreading rapidly across North America, then our whole continent, then the world. Would it make me regret bringing this much adored baby into the world? Would I trade the kind of heartache only motherhood could bring for the absence of that kind of love? I don't think I would. Even with the small glance into that kind of future we've had with H1N1, it's easy to see how the worry and the frustration would become almost all consuming, the world would be stricken with panic, normal life would seem to just about shut down as we all faced our own mortality, just the time I would need a love like that.
I would, as we all would, be praying for just one small ray of hope. And can you imagine the relief if that hope came true and a cure was found. A full cure, not just a vaccine, a cure that would eliminate any chance of further damage from this horrible, ravenous, disease. Whatever it took, the world would unite to make sure the cure became readily available to everyone, no matter the cost, financially, and likely even ethically. Normal regulatory, technical and manufacturing hurdles may be eliminated for the sake of the world. Millions of parents like me would make it so.
Imagine the only thing on our side is that the mysterious illness is slow, and so while death seems inevitable, at least the death toll is relatively low a few months down the road when a potential cure is found. They think they've found a way to use blood exposed to the disease but that for some reason doesn't get infected by it. They only managed to find one small sample of blood in all the blood banks that created this positive reaction in the disease, so immediately they begin asking people to be tested to find another, larger, blood source that could prove their theory they had found the cure. Time is still of the essence, so it is mandatory everyone is tested immediately, so that they have a higher chance of finding this blood sooner rather than later.
Imagine in every city, herded into every hospital and clinic, is every man, woman and child, including you. Including me and my precious baby. But we are all willing, for the sake of humanity we are willing. Yet, there we all are, standing around, scared, with our neighbors, wondering if this is the hope we've been praying for or if this will be the end of the world. And suddenly a name is called across the crowd. It's the name of my baby. I approach the one calling a name that sounded so sweet on any one's lips up until that moment. They take my approach as a sign of willingness and take my baby without a word. "Wait a minute. Hold on!" Five tense minutes later, out come the doctors and nurses, crying and hugging one another - some are even laughing. It's the first time I’ve seen anybody laugh in a few days, and an old doctor walks up to me and says, "Thank you! Your child's blood is the only sample in the whole world that has replicated the results of our test. It's clean, it is pure, and we can make the cure." 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 gray-haired doctor pulls me 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."
I begin to sign and then I see that the box for ordering the number of pints of blood to be taken is empty.
"H-how many pints?"
And that is when the old doctor's smile fades and he says,
"We had no idea it would be such 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!"
"But can't you give him a transfusion?"
"If we had clean blood we would. We don’t! This illness is out of control. Can you sign? Would you sign?"
"Can't we wait to see if anymore blood will surface?"
"At this point, 95% of the world has been tested, the likelyhood there is another source of blood that will work is too low, we have to act now."
My mind begins to fly to all the people in the world that don't deserve the blood of my innocent child, that my baby's life is worth so much more than theirs. I begin with "What if not everyone...."
But the doctor cuts me off, "Please ma'am, we don't have time to waste! We can't take a chance leaving anyone infected, or we'll be back in the same predicament in months."
My child has no future either way it would seem, and so in numb silence, I sign the documents. “I'm sorry, we've got to get started. People all over the world are dying." I'm allowed to stay long enough to say goodbye, which is probably for the best, because as they tear my flesh and blood from my arms, I already can't bare to look into the eyes that seem to scream, "why have you abandoned me, why now when I need you the most do you desert me?" And, as I turn away, part of me dies too.
I leave with the broken heart I knew I would one day experience, but I imagine I would have some peace knowing I had saved the world. Each person I pass on my way out, I search for a look of gratitude, but no one knows I am the mother who sacrificed her only child so they could live. Tomorrow, when all the newscasts and newspapers victoriously announce the survival of the human race, that's when appreciation for my sacrifice would start pouring in. And it does. But then, by the next week, when they have a ceremony to honor my child, not nearly as many people show up as I would have expected. I expected them ALL! I look across the sea of faces there for a chance to say thank you, gaining some comfort from them, until I see some who slip out the back before it's over, apparently there just for show. And I see some people half way through the 2 hour service who have fallen asleep, their new lease on life already past gratitude and on it's way to being abused again. I imagine I would want to jump up and say, "MY CHILD DIED FOR YOU! DON'T YOU CARE?"
This video reminded me of this above story, I had read long before I was trying to become a parent. I saw this video, and the series on John 3:16, done by Max Lucado, at Church today, and boy did the two connect and hit home. John 3:16, 'the prescribed treatment to our ailment.' What word(s) in the verse stands out to you? To me, it was 'gave His one and only son'.
John 3:16 is probably the first Bible verse most of us ever learned, and still remember, yet probably just as taken for granted. Today, when I heard this verse, it was like I heard God whisper, "My Son died for you. Do you care?"
John 3:16 is probably the first Bible verse most of us ever learned, and still remember, yet probably just as taken for granted. Today, when I heard this verse, it was like I heard God whisper, "My Son died for you. Do you care?"
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