January 11, 1922. That is a significant day in history for people all over the world. No, it wasn't the day that King Tut's tomb was discovered, nor the day that the USSR was established. It was the day that Insulin was used for the very first time.
Leonard Thompson, who was just a fourteen-year-old boy at the time, was lying in a hospital bed in a comatose state, dying from untreated diabetes symptoms. Thompson and more than fifty other children were in the same ward, surrounded by grieving parents who were waiting for the inevitable moment that their child would take their last breath and slip into eternity.
It was a painfully somber and cruel end to young lives that had just barely begun to live. But, a young doctor from the University of Toronto, Dr. Frederick Banting, was about to make history with a new medicine that would change the lives of everyone battling diabetes. Dr. Banting and his colleagues, Dr. Best and Dr. Collip, had learned to extract a purified form of insulin from the pancreas of bovine and swine.
As they entered the hospital ward, it was one of the most dramatic and memorable moments in medical history. The hospital beds were filled with children who lay comatose. There was little hope. Their parents sat by as one after another was given an injection of insulin.
As the dose was given to the last patient, the first patient, Leonard Thompson, had already awakened. Then, one by one, all of the children started to wake up! A miracle had taken place. A medicine had been found to manage diabetes. Within moments, a room filled with despair turned into a room filled with hope.
Don't you wish that all stories had endings like that? That there would always be a cure. There would always be a way out. There would always be a hero who rides up on the white horse at the end and saves that day.
That would be nice. If it were so, there would be no discouragement in hard times. No fear of death. No sadness in loss. There would just be the relief of the promise of hope.
Well, good news. There IS hope! I know someone who doesn't just have the means to manage the trials and hardships of life.
I know someone who has the cure! I know Jesus!
He is the maker and the giver of life. He is the protector and sustainer of life. He is the hope and the future of life.
"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's."
Who else could do that but Jesus? No one. Today you may be in the "room of gloom," despairing over things that seem out of your control. Be encouraged today, for there is an answer. There is a way. Speak the name of Jesus.
For "...there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
Call upon Him who is "...the resurrection and the life." For "Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live." (John 11:25)
