Saving a Life Through sacrifice.

Let me tell you about my sister, Judy.  Judy was one of my siblings who 
suffered, along with one or two of our brothers in the family of seven 
children, from a genetic disorder that gradually destroys the kidneys.  
She spent some time in bed instead of at school as a young girl, but was 
strong enough as a young adult to become a registered Nurse.  For awhile 
she worked in publick health, in schools and with those in the community 
who needed special supervision and care.  I remember people warmly 
inquiring about Judy, how she was doing.  She was one of my favorite 
sisters, laughing easily when I joked or told stories, and would 
sometimes spoil me by buying toys every once in awhile.

Judy eventually decided to change careers to go into Christian 
ministrie, taking classes in seminary.  She married, and the couple 
eventually adopted two children.

As she grew older, Judy's health declined rapidly, making her tire much 
more easily.    She was then added to a waiting list for a cadaver 
kidney donor.  The family was on vacation when the call came, and she 
was taken to the hospital that was closer to their home in Oregon.

Now, twenty-seven years later, much longer than the typical seven to ten 
years before shutting down, Judy's transplanted kidney, named Clarice by 
one of the nurses where her surgery had taken place, is still 
functioning.  With the support of medication that my sister must 
faithfully take, Clarice has never rejected the body into which "she" 
had been attached,

Why am I telling this story, you may ask?  Is it possible that we can 
learn from it, as if it were a fable?  I just want to ask some questions 
to ponder:

Did Judy receive her kidney from someone who died because she was so 
well known, was such a good compassionate person who contributed to 
society, someone you could trust with your life? Did she need to say the 
required number of prayers facing a specific direction every day, 
practice transendental meditation, burn candles and sacrifices to some 
gods who would punish her for every little infraction of their demanding 
heart-renching rules? Or did she simply receive it, allowing it to be 
placed inside her system while passively positioned on the
operating table?  Would she be living a productive life today if she had 
insisted that she could perform the rituals and carry out her duties  
forever, that she didn't need any crutch of an intervention via the 
transplant or at least dialysis treatment?

Did her kids need to earn their adoptability by doing all the work 
required of them, by being on their best behavior with more acts of 
kindness than evil deeds weighed on a balance scale?  Did they need to 
go through reincarnated lives until they accomplished everything 
necessary to finally arrive at the state of being called "adoptedness" 
in order to enter the perfect life in a home and real family, or were 
they lovingly brought home without expectations  from them and raised 
toward becoming caring, law-abiding citizens themselves?

Silly questions, huh?  Now, I'm not trying to cram any religion down 
your throat, but Do you know of any religion, besides christianity, that 
involved someone sacrificing his or her life to make it possible for  
your soul to receive this inner heart transplant, so to speak, and live 
forever, even when your body itself becomes a cadaver that naturally 
decays or is soon burned to ashes?  Is it possible that the person who 
sacrificed his blood and returned to life would like to be your best 
friend who knows everything and wants to support and comfort you even 
when tragedy strikes until the end of your temporary life on Earth?  
Would you call being a Christian a religion just because you can't use 
your physical and mental senses to determine whether or not your friend 
is there and that it seems he's not speaking or responding to you?  What 
if you could receive deeper senses so you can wait patiently for him to 
interact with you, something that inner heart transplant could give 
you?    Is it possible that all of us have suffered from a genetic 
disorder that has caused the function of our inner heart to deteriorate 
until we die  unless we receive a divine intervention?

The job of a kidney involves clearing oout body waste.    Why not ask 
Jesus Christ, known as The Great Physician, to clear away the toxins 
that has caused you to be and do everything wrong, give you that 
transplant so that you can live clean forever?

Once an organ is transplanted, medication must be taken regularly to 
help it not to reject the body into which it is attached.  What if this 
Great Physician can come to live inside you through His Spirit to 
continually give you His medication and live His life through you to 
keep you functioning properly as long as you let Him take complete control?

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