The sight of blood still makes me weak—not to mention the needle that comes before it. I dread when the doctor says at the end of an exam, “Okay, I’d like to have some blood drawn so we can see how you’re doing.”
As a child I remember squirming in my pew when we sang hymns with words like: there is power, power, wonder working power in the blood of the Lamb; what can wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus; are you washed in the blood, in the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb. My high soprano 7 year old voice sang along with my family all the while wondering why we had to sing about blood.
For years I ran from the Blood Donor buses when they arrived in the church parking lot. The cookies and juice looked good but no way was I going to sacrifice pain to give a pint of blood. However, the Lord changed this scardy cat when a friend desperately needed platelets in her war against leukemia. (Warning…should the Lord call you to do the same, do not look under your chair to see a plastic bag filled with yellow-white looking paste. The sight of my own platelets made the room grow dark as if I were looking through a paper towel roll. “I think I’m passing out” was all I said to bring me a crowd of white coats.)
I felt so small when I witnessed my friend get out of her hospital bed and walk. How silly for me to act so selfish over a tiny little stick to my arm. Watching her take steps from lifeless to life demonstrated there truly is power in blood.
What once scared me as a child now amazes me of God’s precious gift of warm blood that circulates throughout my body to experience another day. For it is He that commands my heart to beat another beat.
Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.” Exodus 24:8
