Okay, now picture this broken lady I described earlier. Imagine ALL the broken people — all the sick, injured and suffering — throughout all of human history. All the kids who died of diphtheria and cholera. All the kids today with cystic fibrosis, or cerebral palsy. All the adults with heart disease or lung cancer or crippling arthritis.
Imagine more: Your best friend from school, your close buddy at work, the families of dear friends, all those you know and like, beset by cancer, or strokes, or dreadful injuries acquired in accidents.
Imagine the worst: Your brother, suddenly in the hospital with liver disease. Your little sister, permanently confined to a wheelchair after an auto accident. Your dad, struck down by a heart attack. Your very own mother, diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s.
Now imagine … Hope.
Hope for a positive outcome to each of their situations. Imagine them being so much better that smiles break out like wildfire, and you’re suddenly transported to a different, brighter world, a world where the stress and worry peels away, a world where all the positive words are said, and meant:
Cured.
Remission.
Your little sister is going to walk again.
Dad’s okay. He’s coming home.
They say Mom is going to be just fine.
All the kids in hospital beds would see the sunlight again, all the wives and mothers with breast cancer would be restored to glowing health, all the husbands on the verge of death at 50 from overwork and overweight would be slimmed down and returned to their pink, healthy peak.
For the people who worked to accomplish those positive outcomes, there would be all these other positive words: Big-Hearted. Giving. Compassionate. Humanitarian. Heroic. Loving.
For those who worked to choke off these miracles: Cold-Hearted. Misguided. Hateful. Grinch. Sociopath.
Because only the most loving and caring could accomplish such things, only the coldest and most self-centered could stand in the way.
— CONTINUED —