Who am I?
The irate passenger at the back of the queue waiting to board his flight began to fume as the queue seemed to move slower and slower to the booking desk. Having had enough he stormed to the front and demanded that he be allowed to book in and board his flight.
The checking in clerk doing was unfazed and asked him to return to his place in the queue. In a rage he raised his voice and shouted, ‘Do you know who I am?’
The checking in clerk looked at the very irate passengers paused, reached for the public Tanoy, and pressing the send button said, ‘Security please come to the front desk, there is someone here who doesn’t know who he is!’
A lesson to be learnt from this, I think.
Are we more than who we say we are, or think we are, or even whom others think we are. Or are we less than the sum of the parts? Television is swamped by programs that promise to bring our ancestry to life. We indulge in following celebrities invited to examine their history and find out more about the journey by looking backwards. Others like to imitate what is perceived to be entertainment by cross dressing, applying wigs and heavy makeup presenting a persona not of themselves. We can even watch people watching television for our social edification. If we get bored with people, we can catch up on what nature is doing around the world, on land, sea, and air. Or maybe antiques are the thing, following our favourite antique dealers around the airways and visiting what seems to be all the antique shops in the UK. We could mention garden, homes, travel with trains, boats, and planes always available.
We don’t need to go out! We can be whom we like to be sitting on the sofa.
One of the top ten songs played at funerals is Frank Sinatra singing: ‘I did it my way.’
Probably one of the most selfish songs ever written. All about me, me, me. As if there are not others who might have influenced their life. It is not a song of triumph, nor a ballad of a grateful heart, or a love song that lifts the heart; it is about someone who doesn’t know who he or she is; when death beckon’s they trumpet that he or she has lived their life ‘my way’. In this they cast aside all other individuals who might have provided lifesaving medical aid, those who shared their lives taking time to befriend, provide guidance, invite for meals, holidays, and such like. It could be someone who provide a shoulder to cry on, someone who could understand a broken and wounded heart, who was there when it mattered.
I was reminded of a particular moment from the past. The hospital ship was docking in Sierra Leone. Up country was a child who urgently needed medical aid. With ‘up country’ being a remote isolated region, many people still hunter gatherers, how could I get this child the medical aid that was needed. It would need someone to go ‘up country’, find this family and try somehow to get the child to Freetown for treatment. I know the hospital ship send teams of people out into the local communities, but this was more than a day out, this required local travel and the means to navigate in the bush country. It also means finding the family, no easy tasks. And I was in the UK. Contacting my friends in Sierra Leone we were able to send a messenger with news about the ship and the possibility of urgent help for a child. Contacting the hospital ship was just as challenging; needing to explain the difficulties of getting aid to this child, who has no postal address, only a region in the North of the country; you might well think it impossible.
Could we, do it?
Yes, we all pulled together, and a child received welcome medical aid.
It is not who I am, or who others think I am, or even what I think want to be, it was not just about others in the human chain; it was about a desperately needy child who became whole and who can now live their life fully as God intended for them.
Dan, who was caught up in the world found himself sinking into the habit of consuming illegal drugs. He was, as many are, unable to find the way out and self-harm was evident in how he expressed his life. He had become a passenger on life’s downward spiral, going nowhere.
Dan met a Christian man who took at face value, he stepped into his life. It took time, time that was always available. Dan heard about Jesus, about the forgiveness of sins that Jesus offers to all people, and finding out that Jesus would forgive Dan his sins and bring healing to his life Dan accepted Jesus into his heart and became a Christian. The drug taking ceased, his association with those who sold drug cease. Dan went on a hospital ship heading for Africa; with a humble heart served those who needed help.
Who am I? I am connected to all other human being.
Who am I? I am a child of God.
Who am I? My identity is that of the Father God, and his Son Jesus Christ.
I know who I am.
Jesus said, ‘I have come to bring life in all its fulness as God intended it to be’.
Mercy Ships are a blessing to the world.
1st July 2023
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