Hello,
Note to self: do not drink 4 cups of coffee before donating white blood
cells.
A couple of months ago our church had a blood drive at which I bled a
unit of blood that would be put to use to save someone’s life. This was my first donation since moving
to Pennsylvania, and as I had expected there isn’t much difference from state
to state in the blood donation procedures. I was, however, surprised a couple
of days later to get a phone call from the local Red Cross telling me that I
had an exceptional platelet count, and they were wondering if I would be
willing to come in for a platelet donation.
Back in the ‘80’s when we lived in St. Paul, Minnesota, I participated
in platelet donation, but for a variety of reasons had not done so since
then. As you may know, the
procedure for donating platelets involves having a line placed in one arm that
extracts your blood into a machine that separates white and red blood cells,
and then there is a second line placed in the other arm that returns the red
blood cells back to you and leaves the white ones behind in a collecting
bag. The whole process from hook
up to unhooking takes about 3 hours.
My appointment was set for 1:15 for this past Tuesday, and I was told to hydrate well before I
arrived. So along with a very
nutritious Wendy’s hamburger, I drank a big glass of pop before I walked into
the Red Cross. I suppose that the
big glass of pop would not have been anything of significance except for the fact
that I had had several cups of coffee in the morning while I was at work.
I took my seat in the reclining chair where a TV was suspended in front
of me to occupy my attention for the next 3 hours, and with a few misses of my
veins and a few re-sticks, within a half an hour I was sending my blood into
the separating machine. “You can
move your hands,” the technician told me, “but don’t move your arms.” I don’t know if it was the realization
that these words carried that I would have to be motionless for the next three
hours that triggered some unconscious fear, but suddenly I found myself well
aware of all the coffee and pop that I had drank summoning me to visit the
little boy’s room…..which I would not be able to do for about three hours.
To cut to the chase, let me say that it was a very difficult three
hours. The minutes passed more
slowly than the minutes pass when sitting in a dentist’s chair having major
work done on your molars. I tried
not to look at the clock, because every glance only seemed to magnify the pressure
that I was feeling in my bladder.
Knowing that my blood was desperately needed due to the decrease of
donors in this cold/flu season, I was determined not to plead for mercy and ask
to have my donation cut short. To
say that my three hours of being “strapped” to the arms of that chair were
agonizing is probably a bit hyperbolic, but to say that it was a battle with
misery would not overstate the case.
When the bell rang on the machine stating my mission was complete, they
couldn’t get me unhooked fast enough for me to run to the restroom.
It seems to me that we have become so used to talking about the three
hours that Jesus spent “strapped” to the cross, that we do so with a rather
casual appreciation of what he went through for us. Not to say that the discomfort that I endured for three
hours in my reclining char came anywhere close to the excruciating pain that
Jesus endured for three hours on the cross, but this Lent I wont say those
words “they nailed him to the cross” with apathy. If my experience of giving blood brought the level of misery
it did for me, I cannot even imagine the level of misery that Jesus’ experience
of shedding his blood brought to him.
Yet Jesus went willing to that cross to shed his blood so that every
power or deed that would wish to claim you or me would be bled to death and
only God’s claim would remain.
These 40 days of Lent that lead us to Easter are meant to be days of
honest reflection: honest reflection on the pain that we cause ourselves, those
near and far from us, and especially God…but also honest reflection on the
nearly incomprehensible love of God that he would send his Son, Jesus, to shed
his blood on a cross so that we would be given a place in his heart forever.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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