2006-03-26T22:18:00.000-08:00

Hello friends. Most of you know me, so I'll dispense with the introductions until a later date. Welcome to my new blog, Wake Up, Dead Man. Why is it called that? Again we'll get to that later. First, my first post.

I had intended this first post to be a more introductory kind of a thing. Let everyone get to know me before I started spouting off my opinions. But, that's not the way it's got to be. For good or ill, I'm going to hit the ground running. I'm going to be talking about Charlotte Wyatt.

Who is Charlotte Wyatt? She's a very sick girl in England. Portsmouth, England to be more specific. Charlotte was born three months pre-maturely by emergency c-section in October 2003. She was immediately placed in an incubator. Her parents, Darren and Debbie, couldn't hold her for the first three months of her life. After several months she was released from intensive care to the regular maternity ward. Unfortunately, she soon contracted a blood infection, and her lung collapsed. She needed to be put on a ventilator. While she was on the ventilator, her "doctors" (you'll see why that's in quotes soon enough) decided that she would never recover, and even if she did, she would have severe brain damage, and likely be blind and deaf. They, therefore, decided that she did not deserve to live and sought to be released from their obligation to treat her. They went to court to get a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order put on Charlotte so that, should she ever get severely sick again, they could just Let her die without treatment. Her parents quite obviously disagreed with the "doctors" and fought their decision in court. The case was heard by Mr. Justice Hedley, who sided with the doctors.

Now, the rest of Charlotte's story is very complicated. The short of it is that she started to improve, so the Judge removed the order. She later got sick again, so the doctors immediately tried to get the DNR re-instated, which it was. As of right now, she still has it hanging over her head.

However, Charlotte is still proving the doctors wrong. Her reliance on oxygen has gone down slowly, but steadily. She's been slowly getting healthier. In fact, just about every dire prediction the "doctors" made about Charlotte has been proven wrong. Yet that horrible order remains over her head.

So what? You might be asking yourself. That's an awfully long story, and very sad, but what can I do? She's in England, I'm in California, or New Hampshire, or North Dakota, or Virginia, or wherever else any of you might be. What can I do? Well, that's a very good question. One I'm trying to answer myself. For reasons I can't fully explain Charlotte's case has really affected me. You can ask my roommate Lance over at lancesworld.com. He'll tell you. And I have thought of a few things you can do to help her (and I would ask, very politely, that if you can help her, please do)

One, and probably the most direct is to donate money. You can go to www.savecharlotte.com and send money directly to Debbie and Darren. They're raising money to buy the equipment they need to take Charlotte home and care for her themselves, since the British "doctors" taking care of her seem so unwilling to do so. It's way down near the bottom of the page, keep scrolling down (they have the html for it underneath the button, and when I figure out how to do it, I might add it to this blog). If you can't give money (like me), or are unwilling, for whatever reason, that's fine as well. Not all solutions are monetary solutions.

You can raise awareness about her case. Send the link www.savecharlotte.com to others who might be interested or concerned for her story. Who knows? Maybe somehow it will link to someone who can help her more directly. I've heard of much stranger things happening.

You can also get in touch with pro-life agencies in England. Two examples are Prolife alliance at prolife.org.uk or Life at lifeuk.org. And although they're already aware of her case, you could get in touch with the special care charity Bliss at bliss.org.uk.

Finally, and probably the most important thing you can do for Charlotte is to pray for her. And I beg you to do this. Pray for her, for her healing, for her family (I can't even begin to imagine the pressure they must be under). While the reasons for prayer and its power will have to wait for another day, today I simply ask that you do it. I've been in touch with the Bishop of Portsmouth, His Excellency Bishop Crispian Hollis, he urged me to pray for her parents, assuring me that Charlotte was in the hands of a loving God. And surely he is right. She is in the hands of a loving God who will only do what is best for her. And this is a point I want to address. I know I've been going on for awhile now, but I simply must speak on this because the insight hit me tonight. I had actually been wanting to start this blog for weeks now, but had always been putting it off until I heard a particular passage a church this Sunday. I'm simply going to paste the relevant text.

As Jesus passed by he saw a man blind from birth.
His disciples asked him,
Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents,
that he was born blind?
Jesus answered,
Neither he nor his parents sinned;
it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.
We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day.
Night is coming when no one can work.
While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

I think passage says a lot. Not merely about the blind man Jesus met, nor even merely about Charlotte, but speaks to the very heart of Christian belief. In the ancient Jewish understanding of the world, suffering was punishment from God. In the book of Job. Job suffers horribly having committed no sin. Since he's suffering his friends believe that he must have sinned against God. But Job knows he hasn't, and refuses to say that he has. His friends can hardly be blamed for assuming the worst about Job. That was simply their understanding of the world. And here Jesus's disciple show the same understanding. And we could very easily show the same understanding about Charlotte. We could ask who's fault it is. We could ask if her parents did somethwrong. Some horrible sin for which their daughter is paying the price. We could look at Charlotte herself and wonder how a loving God could possibly allow such a tragedy to befall an innocent child. But, at the end of the day, as Christians, we have to believe that God is always working for the good. That, in fact, the good is all God can do. That God cannot do evil. That all suffering is somehow for the good of humanity, and the world. We must believe that Charlotte had these horrible events happen to her not as some sort of cosmic retribution, but so that the glory of God might be made visible through her. In some way, God is making His love for both Charlotte and the world visible through her suffering. True, some of our sufferings are the results of our sins, but I believe all of them, even those caused by sin, can make the works of God visible. Try to think of that the next time a tragedy befalls you.

Before I finish this up, I would beg you one last time, to please pray for Charlotte. Pray for her health, but pray that God's will be done. Because at the end of the day, God's will is much better for her than anything we humans could think to ask for her.

Thank you so much and God Bless you all,

-Hux