Blood Donation

(Before I begin my regular post, I'd just like to thank a former classmate who featured me in her own blog today! I'm so humbled and grateful. Please take some time to explore her fabulous, more established blog - I especially love the recent one about Our Lady, Untier of Knots! The post can be found here: http://trenchcoatintrospective.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/featured-blog-of-the-week-diary-of-a-passionate-phlegmatic/)
 
 
I'm not going to lie... I really, really do not like donating blood. They can never find my vein right away and the needle is so thick and scary (why does the doctor's office use a butterfly needle on me, but the Red Cross uses the gigundo one??). Plus, the last time I was there, I fainted. I woke up to a fan blowing on my face and a nurse saying, "Katherine, Katherine?" This confused an already confusing situation - if you've ever fainted, you understand the disorientation that takes place when you wake up - because no one ever calls me by my full name.

It could have been worse. Apparently if you faint while giving blood, the needle can come out and spurt blood everywhere, and/or you can pee your pants... at least neither of those happened!

But every so often, I feel obligated to do this simple thing to help out humanity. So yesterday, I dutifully kept my appointment (sometimes I "forget").

It was a long, long wait. But as I finally lay in the chair/stretcher type thing, I looked across at my arm. And all I could see in my mind was this:

Suddenly, the needle in my vein seemed tiny, compared to the thick nail in his wrist.

The whole process I went through was sterilized, safe and ordinary; when he fell carrying the cross, dirt and rocks got in his cuts.

When I looked down at my arm, I saw that yellowish color from the iodine; when he looked down his arm, he saw the cuts in his flesh from the scourging.

I didn't feel anything except a little pain when they put the needle in and pulled it out at the end; he agonized on the cross for three hours.

I sipped Sprite with my free hand to keep myself from feeling dizzy. He said, "I thirst," and they gave him vinegar.

I came out with a bandage wrapped around my arm and went on with my day; he was wrapped in cloth and placed in a tomb.

My blood potentially saved three lives. His saved the world.