I enjoy traveling for many reasons, one being the people i meet in the airport, on the plane, in taxis, at starbucks, at events, the more random the location the more interesting a person i meet. I enjoy meeting new people and finding out we have something in common... and not the typical "oh yes i liked that book" or "we are both headed to the same spot" more random like "so i was in a movie that was filmed about your hometown" or "i have been to that town to ride the steepest vehicular incline". but what i truly enjoy about meeting people is what they teach me. I sat with a man on an airplane this week whose father recently had a heart transplant. this to me is amazing (not that i sat next to him but the transplant). This gentleman told me that his father is living as a much younger man now that he has been given a new heart and that he can see a difference in the "life" this new heart brings him compared to the broken old heart. Now living with this strong heart he can see how weak his old heart really was.
To think that God created our bodies in such away that we can replace the old broken parts with new ("the old has gone the new has come" has such a bigger meaning) and that our bodies work with this new part. Then i thought about the details of a heart transplant. . . all the nerves that needed to be connected just right and the vessels that need to match. the details that are important to this astound me. but there is a thought that is even more mind blowing to me then the details of placing the heart in a new body... in order to have that heart for the new body someone had to give his life so that the heart would be available. A person had to choose to give his very body to people he didn't know upon his death so they may have life. but my thoughts on not on the choice to give (though i strongly support organ donation and believe we should all do it, because really why do we need to keep our organs after we die)
my thought is more on the life that is granted... how must it change how you live to know that your life is a gift of someone who died to grant it to you. i know they didn't lay down and die at your feet so they could give you their life, but most likely they were not expecting to die on the day they did. and the truth still remains you have a heart (or other organ) because the donors is dead.
your life is from their death.
if this was a reality for you, would you live in a way that is worthy of that person's death? would you cherish life knowing that you were given a second chance? the thought: " i am alive and well because someone choose to give me life" would roll around in my head daily.
as i pondered these questions over the last few days i was drawn to one answer. . . I have life everyday because of the death of one man and one God who choose to sacrifice his physical body on a cross that he may restore my brokenness and great me life in the midst of sin and death. Why then do i live as though this life is my own? why do i live as though i am still broken? Why am i hesitant to grab the victory that Christ has granted me?