Transformed by writing a single word

Hi there,

My first-born daughter emerged blinking into the world at 9.49 pm one night in May 2008.

Like any birth, it was literally a magical moment. One minute, there were four people in the room, and the next, there were five.

Her birth was, at once, as routine and extraordinary as any of the other 3.6M births in the US each year…but with one significant twist.

At her 20-week scan, she had been diagnosed with a life-threatening condition that would require immediate treatment when she was born.

So, within seconds of her seemingly magical appearance among us, a reception party of nurses and medics gathered around her and whisked her off to another hospital nearby to admit her to the NICU to begin her (ultimately successful) treatment.

Something useful for me to do

As my wife recovered from the birth, I was detailed to accompany our daughter to the other hospital and the NICU.

There, I watched as she was placed in an incubator, set up with drips and monitors, and had heat lamps applied to her extremities to keep her warm.

It was an action-and-anxiety-packed start to family life, but finally, after a few hours, calm descended, and the attending nurse turned her attention to me;

“You need to go down to the reception desk and complete the patient admission forms.”

Happy to finally have something useful to do, I hurried off to locate the desk and complete the formalities.

Whatever the stakes of a hospital stay are (and they are usually high), you would not know them from the admissions procedure.

Disinterestedly handed the familiar combo of sad wooden clipboard, jaded-and-faded-photocopied form, and the thin, painful-to-hold pen that would not give up its ink, I settled in to scratch out as best I could the details necessary to satisfy the hospital entry requirements.

The sucker punch

Initially, all went well.

Patient name (first and last), date of birth (yesterday already!) My name (first and last), address, and all-important insurance number.

And then, out of nowhere, a sucker punch.

A question that practically threw me off my chair and recast this entirely forgettable chore into one of the most memorable highlights of my life.

One that still raises the hairs on the back of my neck, causes my chest to tighten, and my breath to falter even as I write about it now.

That question..?

“Relationship To Patient?”

Technically, I had held my new status for almost four hours by this point. But now, as the pen hovered (very shakily) over the faded form, I grasped that I was about to be transformed by the writing of one single word.

Held back for a moment by the rush of excitement, awe, and not a little fear, I finally pressed the reluctant pen into the thin paper on the unyielding board and, in the best writing a man with a bursting heart could muster, wrote that word;

“Father”

Our relationship to the Savior

This week, in Bible Copy Club, we copied out one of the most famous and transformational encounters with Jesus recorded in the New Testament—the encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well.

There is so much that can be said about this passage and so many lessons to be drawn, but what stood out for me, most memorably, was the last declaration, “this man really is the Savior of the world.”

It’s such a simple, clear, and transformational statement.

Writing these words out sharpens their meaning for us and adds to their weight.

Technically, we all know and believe this, and my hope is that by writing them out this week, your “relationship to the Savior” is clarified, crystallized, and confirmed even more securely in your heart.

Wishing you a blessed Sunday and an exciting encounter with Jesus this upcoming week.

​

Andy

P.S. Tomorrow is the second birthday of Bible Copy Club. It was on that Monday two years ago that I sent out the first weekly email to the 16 "subscribers" I had corralled at church.

Tomorrow's email will go out to 3,000 of you, which in its own small way causes a rush of excitement, awe, and not a little fear.

Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for all your encouraging notes, and if you know someone who would also benefit from Bible Copy Club's daily prompts to copy out scripture by hand, please forward them this link.

It is as easy and enjoyable for me to send BCC to 3,000 as it was to those initial 16!