I got sent this story from a friend in the Uk and wanted to share it.
LIGHT IN A DOCTOR’S DARKEST NIGHTMARE
‘Never in my darkest nightmares did I imagine that I would see and experience what had been going on in Italy in our hospital the past three weeks. The nightmare flows, the river gets bigger. A few patients, then dozens, hundreds. We are no longer doctors but sorters who decide who should live and who should be sent home to die.
Until two weeks ago, my colleagues and I were atheists. We (doctors) learned that science excludes the presence of God. I laughed at my parents going to church. Nine days ago, a 75-year-old pastor was admitted into hospital. A kind man, he had serious breathing problems. He impressed us by reading the Bible to the dying as he held their hand. We were all tired and discouraged, psychologically and physically finished. We could do no more, however we listened to him. Two colleagues have died; others have been infected. We have seen hundreds of people dying. We realized that we needed to start asking God for help. Though we were once fierce atheists, we are now daily in search of peace, asking the Lord to help us continue so that we can take care of the sick.
Yesterday, the pastor died and we were destroyed. He managed, despite his condition and our difficulties, to bring us a PEACE that we no longer had hoped to find. The pastor went to the Lord and soon we will follow him if matters continue like this. I haven’t been home for 6 days. I don’t know when I ate last. I realise my worthlessness on this earth. I want to use my last breath to help others. I am happy to have returned to God while I am surrounded by the suffering and death of my fellow men.’
It gives us a bit of perspective on the situation in another country, but also shows that God is still working. Also it gives us a crazy example of a servant heart even in the midst of a crisis. While this pastor was dying he was still serving.
Questions to reflect while reading Phillipians
(based on last week’s message)
What do you feel about the idea that God came to earth as a human and then to serve? 2:6-8
What should the one purpose, one mind – of the Christian community be? 2:2
Why do you think selfish ambition or vain conceit destroys the community that God wants to create? 2:3
What did you think of the final section – that God raised Jesus up to the highest place, that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord? 2:9-11
Is there anything you have been challenged about through this passage?