The day is over, you are driving home. You tune in your radio. You hear a little blurb about a village in India where some villagers have died suddenly of a flu that has never been seen before. It's not influenza, but three or four people are dead, and 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. Now they say it's not three villagers, but 30,000 villagers in the back hills of this particular area of India.
That night, CNN runs a blurb; people are heading there from the disease center in Atlanta.
By Monday morning when you get up, it's the lead story. For it's not just India; it's Pakistan, Afganistan, Iran, and before you know it, you're hearing the story everywhere. They have coined it "the mystery flu". The President has made some comments that he and everyone are praying that all will go well over there. Everyone wonders how we are going to contain it.
Then the President of France makes an announcement that shocks Europe. He is closing their borders. No flights from any of the countries where this thing has been seen.
That night you are watching CNN. 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 before you even know it. Then you have four days of unbelievable symptoms, and then you die.
Britain closes it's borders, but it's too late. South Hampton, Liverpool, North Hampton.
Then Tuesday morning the President of the United States makes the following announcement: "Due to a national security risk, all flights to Europe and Asia have been cancelled. If your loved ones are overseas, I'm sorry. They cannot come back until we find a cure".
Within four days, our nation has been plunged into an unbelievable fear. People are selling little masks for your face. What if it comes to this country?
On Wednesday night, 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!" The church listens to a little transistor radio with a microphone stuck up to it. Two women are lying in a Long Island hospital dying from the mystery flu.
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 someone who has not been infected. Through all channels of emergency broadcasting, everyone is asked to do one simple thing. Go to your downtown hospital and have your blood type taken.
When you and your family get there late Friday evening, there is a long line. Nurses and doctors are pricking fingers and taking blood. Your wife and kids are there. You are to wait in the parking lot after having your blood taken, and if they call your name you can be dismissed. You stand around with your neighbors wondering if this is the end of the world.
Suddenly a man comes running out of the hospital yelling a name and waving a clipboard. Your son tugs at your jacket and says, "Daddy, that's me!"
Before you know it, they have grabbed your boy. They say, "It's okay! His blood is clean! His blood is pure!" The doctors and nurses are crying and hugging one another. Some are crying, some laughing. For the first time you have seen anyone laugh in a week.
Then a gray-haired doctor walks up to you and says, "Your son's blood type is perfect. It's clean and pure and we can make the vaccine."
He pulls you and your wife aside and says, "We didn't realize the donor would be a minor so we need your consent. You begin to sign and you ask how many pints of blood will be taken.
That is when the old doctor's smile fades and he pleads, "We had no idea it would be a child. We weren't prepared. We need it all. There is no clean blood to give him a transfusion."
You ask to have a moment with your son.
Can you walk back to that room where he sits on a table saying, "Daddy? Mommy? What's going on?" Can you take his tiny hands in yours and tell him you love him and this has to be? People all over the world are dying, but can you walk out while he is saying, "Dad, why have you forsaken me?"
The next week they have a ceremony to honor your son. Some folks sleep through it and some don't even come because they go to the lake, some pretend to care. 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! Don't you know how much I care?"
Often allowing ourselves to see things through the eyes of God breaks our hearts. It is sometimes hard for us to comprehend the great love He has for us.
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