Donating blood

CARLO ORIANI became famous when he won the Giro of Italy in the year 1913, without winning a single lap.

What few know is how this great runner died. During the First World War, while he was fighting on the Italian lines, and during one of the battles, he dived into freezing water to save the lives of a few soldiers.

He died of a lung disease. He was one of the most important soldiers, but he did not care about his fame and was not afraid to give his life for others.

God tells us many times that we must help others. Many people do it: they are capable of giving their time, money, and strength so that others may be happy. But maybe very few are willing to give their lives.

We are all able to talk about love. We could spend entire days explaining what love is andwhat we should do for others, but when we have to demonstrate that love in a practical way... we escape as soon as possible. We have not learned that loving is giving.

God himself demonstrated this by example, "For God so loved the world that he gave..." (John 3:16). You cannot speak about love in any other terms.

If we are not capable of giving, we have not learned what loving means.

How great is our obligation to love? As great as life itself! We have the best example in the world - the Lord Jesus.

He gave his life for each one of us. Not only his life, but he shed even the last drop of his blood so that we could live. It was something like the first "blood transfusion" in history.

And we? What should we do? Think about this specific example: to give our blood for others.

How many thousands of lives could be saved if we were willing to give just some of our blood! It is even good for us, our blood gets renewed!

Why don't we do it? How many times do we give hundreds of excuses (including religious ones) for not obeying what God himself says!

Remember that God says we should give our lives for others... how much more our blood!

How can we speak about our love for God, if we allow someone to die when we could give them our blood in the moment they need it?

What possibilities does a person have to know the love we are so proud about, if they die through our failure to help them?

We are so wretched! And do we still say we love others?