What a sook! Fancy fainting getting a simple blood test. It wasn’t the sight of blood. I never look. It wasn’t the fear of needles. It wasn’t that the blood-nurse looked like Count Dracula’s niece. I’m not sure what happened, until I woke up on the floor with people asking me if I was alright. But then the nurse mentioned the word ‘vasovagal’. I’d never heard the term before, but apparently it’s legitimate, where the body detects a loss a blood pressure, and promptly shuts down the brain.

What happens however, to the human body – well, some human bodies – is not what happens to Christ’s body, the church. Certainly, the church can be subject to tests and trials, and experience some loss of pressure thought loss of members, and face enemies that do look like Count Dracula’s father, but when it does, the Head never shuts down nor has a fainting-fit. In fact, it seems that during such ordeals, the Head remains strong and clear.

When persecution assaults His church, He strengthens, comforts and upholds it so that it will not fall. When apathy sends His church to sleep, He wakens it from its slumber with calls to repentance and focus. When discouragement sends some of His sheep to wander on the hills, He picks up His shepherd staff and walks the high places until He finds His lost ones and brings them home. I’m not sure what the clinician’s would call it. But I would call it love.