Apologetics

"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Genesis 2:7  

Seeing Sandi suddenly take a turn for the worse put life into perspective.  There were times when I was angry, frustrated and feeling slighted by not having personal desires met. It makes me look at things differently when I see her struggling to get up, eat and drink. 

Sandi has terminal brain cancer. So the doctor says. People often defy the doctor's diagnosis. She's in God's hands, and it's his call, not mine. Anyway, a mutual friend said that the cancer won't get her; she's too stubborn to let it. 

Almost three years ago I met Sandi. She was homeless. She had COPD the winter I met her, and she had trouble getting around. Other homeless people wouldn't wait for her after she got off the bus to head for a fast food place after coming from Code Blue. On one occasion, she tripped on ice. When she went into the WIC office, a public building, on a cold winter's day, the government hacks kicked her out just because she was homeless.  

Then I got my car back and she went around with me. 

One day, when we drove to get food after I picked her up after Code Blue, she didn't get coffee and a bite to eat before going in the car to sleep as usual, but stayed in the car.  We drove to the library. Sandi started taking her winter coat off when we got out of the car. When I asked her why, she said "because I want to."  

Before she left Code Blue that morning, she kept pouring coffee into a cup and it spilled out. Sandi said she felt like a hatchet was stuck in her head. 

We went in the library, and Sandi threw up in the ladies room. When she got out, she was very disoriented. I took her to the emergency room. She was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer, which metastasized to the brain and the liver. Radiation zapped the brain cancer after a few months, and a year's chemo removed the cancer fromthe lungs and the liver. It returned to the liver, but the newly marketed Opdivo ate the cancer in the liver, as if Packman was going through.   

I thought we were out of the woods, but after months of chronic tiredness, Sandi couldn't get around at all, and temporarily stopped eating and drinking.  Leading up to that Sandi didn't go to the homeless meals or church with me because she was too tired.  

I sit here now at her bedside watching her sleep. The other day, she told me "I love you more," in her faint voice. 

I'm reminded that life is precious and people have intrinsic value, made in the image of God. God breathed life into us and He gave us a soul. 

Not everyone sees it that way. Two years ago a headline read:  

"Politician Says Homeless People Should Be Put Down By Lethal Injection" 

Yahoo Newsis reporting that a  “Mexican councillor has provoked outrage after that homeless people should be put down like animals to keep the number of them on the streets down. 

Olga Gutierrez Machorro believes that beggars should be culled with lethal injection, believing it to be in their best interests." 

Certain people were in the way, so they rationalized:  

"Her outrageous remarks, made in an interview with the local newspaper Cambio, came when she alleged the Tecamachalco government, led by Ines Lopez, lacked the necessary resources to deal with beggars who are increasing in number on the streets. 

She alleged that killing beggars was already going on unofficially, and added that the local psychiatric hospital, El Batan, often just deposited patients deemed “un-aggressive” in the middle of the motorways at night, where they are killed by cars but also cause accidents that put others at risk." 

As people were being taken away to be churned into Soylent Green in the movie Soylent Green, Detective Frank Thorn shouted "Soylent Green is people!" 

"So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." Genesis 1:27 

We are more than a material taking up space to be thrown out when in the way and no longer needed! Sandi is a human being with a soul, created by God for his purposes.  She has said in the past, and has said since she came here to the nursing home: "Jesus is in my heart." Sandi is a precious child of God, and as I told her tonight, "we are a team." She echoed the sediment.