Be a Hero, Give Blood.

I came to work yesterday, sat through the first class, came into the library for my second class and overheard the janitor chuckling about kids puking. "Oh great, flu season has hit." Turns out, no, the flu has not overrun this high school, rather, the bloodmobile. I'm a good citizen, I like knowing I helped somebody somewhere with my O+ blood. I knew my students were watching a movie during their third class and I didn't have to be in there to aide, so I went to the gym, signed up, got rushed to the head of the line as faculty and no more did I finish reading the booklet, they called my number. Back into the cubby of cardboard I went. [Sidebar: These questions don't apply to me. None of them. Not one of the 120,947,784 questions they ask. My opinion is if they asked me if I've had sex, I'd say no and then they'd only have to ask me about visiting Timbuktu and whether I've been injected with bovine growth hormone, and I'd be hooked up to that baggie and on my way to becoming a hero just that much faster.] I had the best finger stick I've ever had. It was near painless. So painless I thought she'd have to do it again to get enough blood, but she didn't. What a pro.

So the talkative young nurse stops chewing her gum long enough to find my vein with her finger. I have done this enough to know I need to look away or I get queasy. In goes the needle, smooth but foreign and burning like whiskey on a cut. She tapes it down, opens the tube and my blood goes whooshing through it into the bag. I try to read. I can't turn the pages with one hand. I put down the book and look around. The kid next to me is passing out. They drop her head down, lift her feet, and take out the needle. She's done. Poor thing, and she was so close to being a hero.

That word, hero, gets me thinking. I'm a hero and all I have to do is sit here, thinking about standardized tests and the student who passed out? I almost forget that I'm giving blood except for an occasional dull ache in the crook of my arm. This scripture from Isaiah comes to me:

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

and by his wounds we are healed. (53:5)

One needle in one arm. 7 minutes and I'm back to business as usual. I'm not a hero.

Three heavy, long, wide spikes, pounded through the bones of his hands and his feet. 3 hours and there's no more business as usual. He's dead...3 days later and it's a new business, a business unusual.

I'm no hero. I'm not even a good person, on my own. In fact, I find that the good I wish I could do, I don't do and the bad I would avoid, that I do. Wretched girl that I am, who will save me from this life dominated by sin?!

I don't need a hero, I need a Savior.