Skip to main content

Thoughts on giving blood, it is an offering

I started giving blood when I was in the military.  There would be regular calls for blood donation to help wounded soldiers.  When I got out of the military I continued the practice.  I was told by the Red Cross that they needed my blood type and my blood flowed quickly.

In the 1990s I was asked if I wanted to donate platelets.  Platelets are the broken blood cells that allow our blood to clot.  They are the main reason we do not bleed to death from a paper cut.  Chemo-therapy destroys platelets.  Especially in children who are being treated for cancer with Chemo-Therapy, there is a danger of bleeding from the slightest injury.  Therefore, platelets, donated by others,  are given to such people during the Chemo-Therapy.  Platelets must match the blood type of the recipient, like whole blood.  Donating whole blood takes about 15 minutes.  Donating platelets takes 2.5-3 hours.  The process is called aphaeresis.  They take the whole blood out of one arm and centrifuge out the platelets and put the blood back in the other arm.  Because there is no volume loss with a platelet donations, platelets can be donated every 3 days.

The Bible has a great deal to say about blood.  From the very first sin, animals were killed to create coverings for Adam and Eve.  The assumption of theologians is that the animals were sacrificed to cover their sins.  From that point on, animals were sacrificed and their blood spilt to make atonement for people’s sins.  God made it very clear, post flood, that blood is sacred.  When a person eats meat, they cannot eat it with the blood still in it.  Additionally, people cannot spill human blood without punishment.

It is clear that people need blood to survive and people need platelets to survive.  I donate as an offering to God and out of concern and love for my fellow man.  Donating blood with the Red Cross is voluntary.  I have read that money used to be paid for blood, but that does not seem to be that case today, in California.  Therefore I voluntarily give my blood for God to use the best way possible to heal the most people.  Blood does not last forever, therefore there is always a need.  Especially when there is a large scale tragedy, like the series of hurricanes earlier this year, the Red Cross takes blood form all over America and shipped it to Houston, Florida and Puerto Rico.

Therefore, I offer my blood and platelets as an offering to God. I understand that some cannot give blood.  I can and apparently I am good at it, so I give. It is the most personal offering I can give to anyone.  I walk in with nothing and blood is taken out of my body and used to help others.  Donating blood is a very personal offering humbly offered to my God and my fellow humans.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Remembering the Franklin Day Planner

This week I have been rereading Hyrum Smith's book "The 10 Natural Laws of Productivity and Happiness." This book was written in the late 1980s and I remember reading it for the first time when I was working at Seagate Technologies, after my time in the Air Force. The core tool talked about in the book is the Franklin Day Planner . I remembering having one such planner, long before smart phones and Palm devices. Mine was a leather bound loose-leaf binder with calendar and note pages in it. I kept my daily tasks list and appointments in that binder, which became a record of my work history at Seagate and beyond. The Day Planner binders, pages and supplies were sold at a store called Franklin Quest , which was located at Valco Mall in Sunnyvale. At that time, I was a computer programmer. I was able to keep a record of all request for software, who made the request and when and what the requirements were. It seemed that I was the only one keeping a record of this b...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thoughts on the Gap theory

The Bible is a closed book.  When God was done writing the Old Testament, he stopped until Matthew.  When he wrote Revelation, he stopped.  There are warnings in the Bible about adding or subtracting words from the Bible. Deuteronomy 4:2 & 12:32 and Revelation 22:18 are the three most specific.  The idea throughout the Bible is that this book is inspired Scripture and people have no right or authority to add to them or take away. This is why the Gap theory is so strange.  People probably feel it would be too obvious to add 16 extra chapters to Romans or Ephesians, so they try and sneak some extra stuff into Genesis.  That is the Gap Theory. The Gap Theory says that there is a space of time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.  The space that some people insert is a couple of hundred years all the way up to billions of years.  The most popular use for the Gap Theory is to put the entire evolutionary process between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1...
Post a Comment
Read more

What do I preach?

I preach the Word of God.  The style I use is called expositional exegetical .  I draw the meaning out of the Scripture and explain it.  I believe this is the only approved type of preaching.  To preach events out of the newspaper or the latest psychology fad does nothing to edify the saints or glorify God and certainly it does not contain the power to save. The context for my preaching is that I preach through books of the Bible.  Most recently I have been preaching through the gospel of John.  I started in John 1:1 and last Sunday I preached through John 21:15-17.  Charles Spurgeon preached through the entire Bible, but did not take the verses in order.  He bounced around, and got through the entire Bible. One of the most popular styles of preaching in large churches or churches that want to be large is a style called “topical.”  Traditionally topical preaching takes a topic that is from the news or something that the pastor is reading....
Post a Comment
Read more