The Importance of a Heart Subscribe to the Devotional

This week's focus: Sanctity and Dignity of Life

At the beginning of the year, the world watched in horror after a young, healthy football player named Damar Hamlin, fell to the ground after suffering cardiac arrest from a sudden hit to his chest during the team’s game. With his heart no longer delivering blood to his brain, he lost consciousness, requiring immediate action to prevent permanent disability or death.

Understanding the severity of the situation, the Buffalo Bills’ assistant athletic trainer, Denny Kellington, heroically administered CPR while nervous fans watched from the stands. Shocked and scared, Hamlin’s teammates surrounded him and unashamedly knelt in a tight circle and cried out to God in prayer.

After an agonizing ten minutes, Hamlin was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. In distress over what happened, countless people shed tears and prayed for a man who had his whole life ahead of him, a man too young to die.

Dan Orlovsky, a commentator for ESPN, even stopped during his live television show and prayed on behalf of Damar; “God, we come to you in these moments… because we believe that You’re God and coming to you and praying to You has impact...”

Three days later, Hamlin’s doctors announced he was neurologically intact and beginning to awaken. One week later, he was cleared to return to Buffalo. Two weeks later, he was back at the Buffalo Bills’ team facility and talking to his teammates. God turned tragedy into triumph like only He can do.

As frightening as the ordeal was, it was needed to highlight hope for our nation. God used this moment to remind us of what so many have forgotten:

• The value of a beating heart
• The importance of unity
• The power of prayer

On January 2, 2023, everyone seemed to care.

I’ve spent many years as a counselor at a life-affirming pregnancy center, so when I saw what was happening, I couldn’t help but think of the millions of hearts that abortion has purposely and forcefully stopped. Damar’s trainers, medics, doctors, and nurses fought for his life, and their efforts were rewarded.

Sadly, many people today fight not to save lives but for the right to take them. I wonder if that would change if our nation would begin to awaken and realize that when Damar’s heart miraculously began to beat again on the football field, it wasn’t for the first time, but the second. The first time was five weeks after he was conceived in his mother’s womb. His heart was as valuable then as it is today.

If our world expressed the same compassion, urgency, and prayer for babies in the womb, over sixty-five million hearts (in the United States alone) would be beating, and the hearts of countless mothers and fathers wouldn’t be broken.

I pray the visual of seeing a young life almost taken, will motivate us to shed the same tears and cry the same prayers on behalf of the most helpless among us. Like Damars’ trainer, let us heroically fight for every heart.

by: Jennifer McAlister, Communications, My Faith Votes