WHAT DO YOU HAVE?

     A surgical magazine tells the story of a hard-pressed, irritable, nervous, overworked surgeon in a busy New York City hospital. He was ready to perform another emergency operation. He was in a hurry, it was Christmas Eve, December 24, and it had been quite a day in the surgical suite.
    The patient was a beautiful girl of 17 who had been seriously injured in an auto accident. The nurse, about to give the anesthetic, ssaid kindly, "Relax - breathe deeply and the pain will be gone."
    The girl said, "Would you mind if I repeated the 23rd Psalm from the Bible, before you operate?"
    The nurse looked at the surgeon and he nodded; the girl began:
    "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. . . . "
    The surgeon continued with his preparations, but everyone else stood still, listening. They had heard these beautiful words many times in church but they had never sounded so moving. Here in that surgical suite, they had another meaning, a deeper kind of meaning to them.
     The girl went on, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me. . . ."
     The nurse held the cone above her to begin with the anesthetic.
     "Hold it," said the doctor. "Let her finish." Then he moved over and looked down at her and said, "Go on, honey, say it to the end and say it for me too, won't you?"
     They all stood quietly and listened as her heart, full of faith, filled the operating room that Christmas Eve day. They heard some of the most moving words ever written:
     "Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me," she paused, catching her breath, then went on to the finish, "and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
    The surgeon looked down at her. He was relaxed, his sense of irritation was gone. There was no feeling of other duties pressing in on him. He and his patient and the operating room crew were at peace and ready for the surgery.
    Everybody in that room had been lifted by that girl's faith. 



And Mary said: "My soul praises the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour" (Luke 1:46-47)