Something The Lord Made

"When God is going to do something wonderful, it starts with something hard." Anne Lamott

The movie, "Something The Lord Made," starts with something hard, nearly impossible. Two talented men are thrown together in a world dominated by bigots; one is a respected heart surgeon, the other is a black man who might as well be invisible. Except for his hands. We'll get to that in just a minute.
Dr. Alfred Blalock is a pioneer in his field. It's the Depression era. He needs an assistant - he finds the quiet but brilliant Vivien Thomas. Thomas, the Dr. discovers, has an uncanny grasp of new trends in the field of heart medicine. He also has an astonishing set of hands: the agile, skillful hands needed in the critical intervals between life and death.
Pushing against the prevailing racism of the time, Blalock brings Thomas into the operating room. He praises Thomas' hands as being "like something The Lord made."
I love this true story. It's a story of greatness recognizing genius. What could have been squelched due to "class" or "color" was reverently celebrated and, much later, awarded an honorary doctorate.
If you boil the story down to its essence, what you have, really, is a miracle -- a miracle set into motion by a Creative God, and, more importantly, a witness to the wonder. The privileged surgeon has talent but esteems his assistant as one set apart.
Society pushes Thomas to the margins, but medical science needs him. And that's another miracle: countless "blue babies" plagued by a desperate lack of blood oxygen, are saved.
Writer Anne Lamott says it beautifully: "When God is going to do something wonderful, it starts with something hard. And when He is going to do something exquisite...it starts with something impossible."