Rebuilding For The Future

REBUILDING FOR THE FUTURE

INTRO.- ILL.- A doctor said to his patient, “I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?”

Patient: “Give me the bad news first.”

Doctor: “We amputated the wrong leg.”

Patient: “What’s the good news?”

Doctor: “Your other leg won’t need to be amputated after all.”

ILL.- A surgeon was invited to a dinner party. As the host was carving the meat he said, “How am I doing doc? How do you like my technique? I’d make a pretty good surgeon, don’t you think?”

When the host finished carving the meat, the surgeon finally spoke up and said, “Anybody can take them apart, Harry. NOW LET’S SEE YOU PUT THEM BACK TOGETHER AGAIN.”

Have you ever been in a hospital for surgery? Did you go back together well? Did you mend well? DID YOUR BODY REBUILD ITSELF?

ILL.- April 15th. That’s not a good day for many people. It’s tax day and it was a very taxing day for me in 1998. Not because I got axed by taxes, but because I got “axed” by a surgeon who replaced my right hip. I had a complete hip replacement because of osteoarthritis.

I thought since I had run thousands of miles, 14 marathons, and was still in pretty good shape that this surgery thing would be a snap. My boss at the Silk Tree Factory told me to plan to take off five weeks. I said, “I’ll be back in two weeks.” I WENT BACK IN FIVE WEEKS! And I really didn’t want to go back then!

I got a big surprise! My body and hip didn’t recover as quickly as I thought it would. I had to walk with crutches for eight weeks and another six weeks or so with a cane. The girls at work loved it. They called me, “Crip,” “Old man,” and “Chester.” And I often felt worse than old man “Chester” from Gunsmoke fame.

My recovery and rebuilding was slow at best. I thought I’d bounce back very quickly, but I discovered that it takes time for the body to heal and rebuild itself.

Just as it takes time for the human body to recover and rebuild itself after surgery, so it takes time for the human spirit to recover and rebuild after suffering trauma.

SUCH AS WHAT? Such as losing a loved one in death. Such as the people in New York and Washington after losing many loved ones in that terrible act of terrorism on September 11th.

It’s difficult to imagine the pain and hurt that many of those people are going through right now. Even though we can’t completely imagine how they feel we must suffer with them.

Romans 12:15 “Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.”

ILL.- In an interview with NEWSWEEK magazine, New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani, was asked if he was getting any sleep. He said, “About three, four hours. This morning I woke up very early and was going to go down there at, like, four in the morning [before] I realized that was not a good idea. So I stayed. But then [at about 1 p.m.] I went there for just a couple of hours. I just wanted to walk. I’ve taken so many people down there with cameras, I just wanted to walk by myself through there, and see it and feel it and talk to people.”

“And while I was there they found a firefighter and took him out. It was just an unbelievable experience. The firefighters will not allow anyone else to extricate the bodies of their fallen brothers.

They brought him down in between about 40 firefighters who stood there saluting, and then a priest came and gave a blessing. Then they carried him off. If you watch that and you don’t cry, then you have to question whether you’re human.”

I am glad that Mayor Giuliani can cry. If we were there, to see the devastation and the people, we would cry too.

First, comes the tears. Then perhaps anger, confusion and mistrust. But then comes the recovery and the rebuilding.

New York will rebuild. What? I don’t know, however. The Pentagon will have to be rebuilt. Rebuilding is necessary, but rebuilding doesn’t always happen. It must happen for us, however. How will it happen?

ILL.- Again, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was asked another question by NEWSWEEK magazine which might enlighten us. They asked: What I’m hearing is that, behind the scenes the tough Rudy is still there, you’re still really pushing people, holding them accountable. (is that true?)

Giuliani said, “At a meeting they said that it would take 10 days to clean up one of the buildings. I said ‘It took God seven days to create the earth. So we can do better than that, don’t you think?’ But they’re terrific, absolutely terrific.”