The human body.
Amazing.
Until something is not working, it is so easy to take for granted the incredible body we live in...the life we have been given. Whether it is a wrist that is sprained or bone marrow that is not producing cells, it can be so easy to forget what a miracle it is that we are alive..that we are conscious..that we breath every day, every minute, every second...and in that breath, the most intricate, inconceivable thing happens...the machine that is our body runs smoothly. I don't often wake up and thank God for being alive yet another day...for having the ability to stand up out of bed and get ready for the day. I just get up. How careless I can be in forgetting to give thanks for the everyday things in life that are in fact the essential and amazing things that we have been given...a body to live in.
Incomprehensible.
I am learning so much about the interconnectedness of the systems that run in the body. I have never considered myself very mechanical or "handy" around the house. The only thing I can disassemble and put back together is IKEA furniture...I just follow the stick figure drawings and hope for the best. If I make a mistake, then I live with it, redo some steps, or call for Mark to help me. When the item is complete, I feel like a carpenter..so proud of my accomplishment..while knowing full well that my construction and the work of a carpenter are worlds apart..but I love the satisfaction of completing the task anyway.
The human body is unbelievable. So intricate, interconnected, delicate..and yet can run for many years with little or no maintenance. Doctors and scientists have discovered so much about the body..they have discovered clues to the inner workings of our hearts, our brains and our bone marrow. They have made such enormous advances in the treatment of disability and disease. And yet, they know so little. The tip of the iceberg has only been uncovered. Because His ways are not our ways..even the most intelligent of human beings can never comprehend all of God's design of the human body.
God designed.
God and only God could have designed such an incredible thing as the human body. There is so much that we will never comprehend..but one thing for sure is that there is nothing else like the workings of living things. To call it "intelligent design" is an understatement...Elijah's Ipad is intelligently designed..the human body is a miracle. Oh, how I have taken that for granted over the years.
The great majority of babies born into this world are born healthy with all the parts working as they should. When a baby is born with a disability or health condition, we are caught off guard...partly because we have come to "expect" health..that is how it has always been. And when our child is born with spina bifida or cerebral palsy, we wonder what went wrong..we wonder if we could have done something differently that would have made this disability disappear..our world is shaken to the core for a time.
It is at those times, when our world seems like it is spiralling out of control, we become aware of our own bodies. Every breath we take is apparent to us...our heart beats fast...as our body reacts to the emotional trauma, we are fully aware that nothing feels the same as it did before. And then as we begin catch our breath, it becomes apparent that we have a choice to make. Do we choose to believe that God was turning His back on us, that he was looking away when our child was being formed in the womb? Or do we choose to see that God's design does not just apply to the healthy body that works as it should. God's good design applies to all people...disabled or not, healthy or not, impoverished or not...
Frail.
The parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. 1Cor 12:22
Our bodies are just temporary. They are not meant to last forever. At the same time that we are all living, ultimately we are all in the process of dieing. I want to live as if I have not lost sight of what a gift it is to life in a healthy body..But more importantly, I want to live life knowing what a privilege it is to live life with an affliction. For it is in our frailty, in our child's frailty, that our eyes are opened to truths that we would have missed otherwise. Teach me Lord, to appreciate all things you have given me....I am so thankful for the human body..healthy or not. And I am even more thankful that there is so much more life beyond our existence in this earthly body. Amazing, God designed, inconceivable...heaven. .
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
Psalm 139:13-16
