DOWNLOAD AT LACEY BLOOD DRIVE

I love donating blood.  You get to sign in, wait, get pricked, wait, get pricked, eat pretzels and go home.  “But wait, that’s not why we are all here!” I mused while waiting my turn at the Lacey Rotary Club Blood Drive earlier this year.

If it’s not the pricking and waiting that motivates these donors, what is it that keeps them giving blood time after time?  I had taken my brand new copy of Culture of Honor by Danny Silk and was a few chapters into it when I was called to donate.  “Culture of honor!” I nearly spoke it out loud.  The Red Cross practices that principle for sure, I reasoned.  In his book, Danny Silk explains the “Principle of Honor behind the culture of honor practiced in his church:

“…accurately acknowledging who people are will position us to give them what they deserve and to receive the gift of who they are in our lives”.(Culture of Honor, p. 25)

I was getting excited by now as God downloaded the principle of honor in living color, blood red to be exact.  The Red Cross blesses, honors and values the people who walk in the door to donate.  They send thank you emails; they give award pins when you hit your first gallon; heck sometimes they even announce it out loud at the donation site and you get a round of applause.  They get excited when it’s your first time and make you feel like hot stuff.  They get excited when it’s your 10^th time and make you feel like hot stuff.  They give people the honor they deserve for their willingness to give of themselves, and then the donors give to the Red Cross, as well as all the people who benefit from their blood, the gift of who they are, their own life blood.  “You are valuable, appreciated, and needed!” says the Red Cross.  And the donors respond, “I love feeling valuable, appreciated and needed, so I’ll be back in five weeks to donate some more of the treasure within me!”

I shared my thoughts with Belinda, the phlebotomist taking my blood that morning.  She smiled in understanding, and shared with me another tidbit about blood donation.  She had me feel the tube in which my blood was flowing into the collection bag.  “It’s warm,” she said, “as it should be.  If it was cold, we would have to stop the donation because it would mean something was wrong, like a blood clot.  Or it could mean that your body is dehydrated and you should not be draining it of any fluids, including blood donation, at this time.” She paused as I took in this new information.  Warm, flowing blood, coming from my heart is what is needed.  Cold is not good, not helpful, not healthy… 

Then she added another reason that the blood flow might be cold and therefore not acceptable.  “If the phlebotomist inserts the needle incorrectly, plunges it too deeply, that could also make the flow cold, and unacceptable.”  So, wounding the donor can be detrimental to the donation process, too….

So, we the church, God’s family can garner a few pearls of wisdom from the Red Cross here, about encouraging a Culture of Honor in our midst. Recognize the valuable gifting in each one who comes through our doors.  Hey, not everyone is going to have that rare blood type, and not everyone is going to be a “universal donor” that gets along with everyone.  But each type is needed, each gifting, each personality.  We as a culture of honor must learn to recognize and call forth that gifting in each other, honor each other for who God made us, recognize the treasure in each one.  We need God’s eyes to do that, since some treasure is hard to see, like a pearl inside an oyster.  As we release God’s heart over each one, let them know they are wanted, loved, valuable and even desirable to us as well as to our God, we open the way to “to receive the gift of who they are in our lives”.  It will keep them coming back, not just every five weeks like the “gallon club”.  They will love, as I do, coming to the one place they feel alive, accepted and valued just for being themselves.