When Linnea was 3 years old, our family of 5 took a vacation to Wisconsin and ended up in a place no vacationer wants to go: the doctor’s office.
It began as we loaded our station wagon for a 40 minute drive from our rented cabin to the county fair. As we climbed into the car, Linnea let out a shriek from the back. All of us looked simultaneously and saw her holding the top of her head as she continued to holler in pain.
Nate and I bolted from our front seats around to the back, and what we saw horrified us. Crawling on the floor of the car was a dark grey bat in the process of folding his webbed wings. Linnea, still rubbing her head, pointed and said, “That thing bit me!”
And suddenly we had a problem.
Nate quickly confined the bat by dumping out a metal tool box and turning it upsidedown over the sluggish animal, and we knew our next move had to be finding a doctor. The resort owners directed us, but before we left, we wanted the bat out of the car. As we moved the tool box, he flew away.
Within the hour, medical personnel were examining Linnea’s scalp wound, chiding us for not hanging onto the bat. “We could have tested it to determine whether or not your daughter will get rabies.”
The doctor told us in most rabies cases, bats are responsible. He described a scenario of certain, excruciating death, and told us the only remedy was multiple painful injections into the abdomen. (This was 32 years ago.) “It’s a gamble,” he said. “If the bat had rabies, your daughter will die. If not, she’ll be fine.”
We learned it’s difficult to tell if a bat is sick just by looking at it, but since they’re nocturnal, finding a bat during the day was a bad sign. The doctor also said, “Any bat found in a place where they usually aren’t seen could be rabid.”
Nate and I agonized over what to do, and because the probabilities were in our favor, we took a chance and did nothing. Looking back, we were probably foolish to gamble with Linnea’s life that way.
There are many ways any of us can gamble with our lives, but there’s only one way to do it with eternal permanence. That’s to forfeit salvation through Christ. Whatever we decide about him in this life will have consequences in the next. It’s absolutely critical not to gamble on this point, even more so than in a decision about a bat’s bite.
Linnea’s story turned out well, especially because of its interesting twist. Once back at home we were unloading the car when we noticed a big tuft of long red hair hanging from the wardrobe hook in the back of the car where Linnea had been sitting.
Most probably, her bat-bite had been a hair-yank and not a bite at all.
“Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2)