The last two nights in a row I have had to go to the Emergency Room at Hackley Hospital immediately following Oz rehearsal. Two girls from the same family, one 17 and the other 2, were both there, one on Tuesday and the other on Wednesday, with high fevers and sore throats. The diagnosis--strep throat in both cases. The 17 year-old is going to have to have her tonsils out. The 2 year-old was treated early enough that there shouldn't be any more issues as long as she follows the routine of antibiotics she has been prescribed.
In this same household there is also a 4 year-old and an 18 year-old and a mom. The little ones and mom were at church last night, running everywhere in the building and crawling all over me (the little ones, not the mom!). (Let's see--not getting a lot of sleep because of Oz and ER visits, weather is getting gloomy and rainy--anyone want to lay odds on how long it is before I get this stuff?) It is predictable that at least someone else in that household is going to get this stuff before it's all said and done. That's the way germs work. We are now alerting the parents of children exposed to the 2 year-old last night to let them know what's going on, too, so that they can watch for signs of something similar going on in their own kids.
Interestingly enough, I was reading an article in the Johns Hopkins magazine earlier this week about the increasing issues scientists are having creating antibiotics that are able to battle against various infections, including strep throat. These germs are, apparently, quite intelligent and very adaptible. When they encounter resistance they adapt. And they not only adapt but they teach one another how to adapt, even across germ families. And so a germ that causes one type of staph infection is able to communicate with a germ that causes a type of viral infection and pass along information that helps that germ develop resistance to new antibiotics.
These are, in many cases, single-cell organisms.
I wish that we non-religious Christ-follower types could learn to be that adaptable and germ-like. We face all kinds of resistance to our faith and our belief systems. Often times people want to innoculate themselves against us (I suspect that's our fault as well). But what if we multi-cellular organisms could learn to adapt in such a way that we could get around their resistance and find ways of pointing them toward the Jesus who has transformed our lives? What if, instead of fighting the same battles against the same resistance, we could find another way?
It seems to me that Jesus pointed us in that direction when he said something about "love," but I might be mistaken about that.
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4 comments:
Prevention!...Is there such a thing when it comes to such determined and "smart" germs? We hear it everywhere, "wash your hands!", "cover your mouth", "take your vitamins", "don't eat that off the floor!"
As Christ followers we know "Do not kill", "Trust", "Hope" "Spread the gospel (not germs)", "Love our neighbors"...hmmm, there's that LOVE thing. We have good intentions of washing our hands and not spreading germs, we also have good intentions of loving our neighbors and sharing the gospel so they too can share in the truth & eternal life. But do we end up preventing or harming? Sometimes we're not the intelligent, multi-celled organisms God created us to be, and I think YOU have a great point. I like how you said, "What if we could learn to adapt in such a way that we could get around their resistance and find ways of pointing them toward the Jesus who has transformed our lives? What if, instead of fighting the same battles against the same resistance, we could find another way? Reason for a new anti-"BODY" called "Satan-cillin". I don't know?
But what IF? What if we just LOVED, truly, unconditionally loved one another all the time? Would it conquer and spread like Strep?...
"Love conquers all"
"But the greatest of these is LOVE."
I swear when I first read the title I thought it said 'German Christianity'.
I've been innoculated against religious people. A good dose of Jesus is all it takes.
In my devotions this morning I was reading from Ephesians 2 and came across this familiar passage: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God--not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life."
I see love all over this passage, for it is manifested in the grace God showers on us and also in the good works we are to demonstrate toward others.
Just think of the possibilites....
BTW--just for the record, I love all German Christians everywhere.
:-)
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