Rare Please, With a Bag of Blood on the Side

I am one of the rare people who likes their steaks and burgers rare. Really rare. If you instantly started thinking, "so that's why she got cancer!", then you must be one of those people who prefers their meat what I would call "dry and tasteless" and you would call "perfectly delicious and not in danger of walking away." At our house we say, "that's why they make chocolate and vanilla ice cream."

Last Tuesday night I had a blood transfusion to turbo boost my anemic red blood count. During the six hours in the hospital transfusion room, I was offered the chance to order anything I wanted from the extensive hospital dining list. I chose Chicken Marsala (wine and mushroom sauce), mashed potatoes, green beans, lemon chiffon on a nut crust (the best part of the meal) and milk.

What I didn't choose was to eat my meal while plugged into the transfusion machine, with the blood bag drip, drip, dripping into me -- all within a foot of me and in clear sight.

When it was time to begin the second bag of blood, the picnic cooler holding it sat on the same tray where I was eating. It looks like the same kind of picnic six pack cooler you'd buy at Target but held the blood bag (and no harvested heart or liver for a transplant). Before they loaded up the bag on the transfusion tree, the bag of blood just sat there on my table, 9-inches away from my food. Even for me, that's more blood than I like to look at while I'm eating.

By the way, I my blood type is O Negative (unlike my sister, Lizann, who is proud of her A Plus grade). Someone told me they have JC Positive blood (Jesus Christ Positive), which sounds good to me. I am grateful to have the Holy Spirit living in me and know that He truly does cover every cell in my body with healing, love and life.

Jesus said to them,

"I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,

you have no life in you.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life,

and I will raise him up at the last day.

For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.

Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father,

so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.

This is the bread that came down from heaven.

Your forefathers ate manna and died,

but he who feeds on this bread will live forever."

He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

On hearing it, many of his disciples said,

"This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"

Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this,

Jesus said to them, Does this offend you?

What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!

The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.

The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

Yet there are some of you who do not believe."

For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him.

He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."

John 6:53-65