Give Blood Yo!

These days have flown by. But I want to stay committed somehow to writing consistently. I am working on a reflection of Psalm 86 and other Scriptures, inspired by church on Sunday, but the hour has gone by, it's 2:30 in the morning and I am fairly sleepy. Hopefully I will be able to get it up here tomorrow with better concentration.

In other news, I gave blood today for the first time in a while. Here is my moment to ask all of you to give your blood if you are healthy enough to do so and are able to get through all the questions without needing a doctor's notice. I am not the prime example of one who gives as it has been years, but if you are not a regular donor, please consider taking the 30-45 minutes necessary to provide for a worthy cause. Here in Gainesville LifeSouth Community Blood Centers is currently giving away free movie tickets. They are always doing something cool like that as added incentive to get us off our butts and into that awkward trailer of theirs.

Speaking of awkward, the biggest challenge you may face is getting through the questions they ask during screening. It's not that the questions are hard to answer due to content. No, it's because the people asking them say them as if all the vowels are missing and they need to get them all out faster than the Americans in the 4 X 100 Freestyle Relay. I had to concentrate so hard as the girl spewed each question out as if her body was rejecting the words and wanted to puke them up, that I stared weirdly at her with my mouth open. She didn't look at me the whole time so the odd contortions my face made went unnoticed. I asked her "What?" enough times to make the process go about as fast as it would if she spoke to me like a normal human being instead of one who has an Intel Pentium 4 Processor for a brain. I am going to have to think of something creative to do during that time when I give blood again. Maybe I can answer "no" so fast she will have to then ask "What?" to which I would reply with a nice, "HA, Sucka..........Nooooo, I do not have syphillis, chlamydia, or gonorrhea, nor have I had sex with someone who does in the last 12 months."

That would be funny.

I also used a really cheesy, but maybe effective analogy for evangelism. The girl was asking me what I was doing with my life and told her I am going to back to school because I love Jesus and want to share Him with others, etc. She asked me why I do what I do so I brought it back to Christ with this line, "In reality, Christ gave his blood for us so that we could not just have physical life, but eternal life." Immediately afterward I thought, that is either really cheesy or extremely Holy Spirit inspired. With either being true, I laughed to myself. Christ's death is no laughing matter, of course, but sometimes we--well I--say some of the darnedest things as one of his messengers. I wonder if He laughed with me.

Since it will be eight weeks until I can donate again, maybe you can take my little joke or the analogy and bring it with you to the nearest blood bank. You have the chance to be both funny and do a good thing. Make jokes. Give blood. Share Jesus. Have fun.

By His Grace.