HE DID IT!

Monday, April 17, 2006 — the day of my miracle!

​He did it! He woke us up AGAIN! He woke us up with breath in our lungs and a beating heart!  We have another day to be alive!  YES!!

While it may seem like I’m being a little facetious — if we really stop and consider the true miracle that we are as a living human being, there certainly is great reason to praise God.  

Every moment of every day, regardless of what is happening externally around us, whether we’re having a good day or a bad day — our bodies are working around the clock, doing the most mind-boggling things, just to keep us alive.  There is no better word than “miraculous," to describe how perfectly our internal organs work and fit together so precisely.    The intricacies that make our bodies function day in and day out are almost impossible to comprehend: 
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• Without even thinking about it, we breathe in, and breathe out 17,000 times a day.  
• An adult human body contains 100,000 MILES of blood vessels. If you were to lay them out in a straight line, they would wrap around the earth’s equator 4 times!!! 
• Our heart pumps approximately 2,000 gallons of blood through it’s chambers a day!  To put this in perspective, the average household only pumps about 200 gallons of water every day! 
• Our body is comprised of 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (7 octillion) atoms!  I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around the immensity of that number!
• Our brains NEVER stop working, even as we sleep.  The human brain thinks 35-48 thoughts per minute every 24 hours!  
• The cells in our stomach lining produce an alkaline substance every few milliseconds to neutralize our stomach acid.  If this stopped happening, our stomach would digest itself because some of the acids are strong enough to dissolve metals!

• Our body's cells regenerate themselves every single day. This means that we have an entirely new set of taste buds every 10 days, new finger and toe nails every 6-10 months, new bones every ten years and even a new heart every 20 years!!

There's not much that can leave me speechless.  But the miracle of our body and all of it's functions is simply indescribable!  

Thousands and thousands of years before any of these incredible facts were known to man, King David recognized the miracle of God’s greatest creation, the human body.  He praised the Creator by saying, You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.  Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!  Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it!  — Psalm 139:13-14

Before science and discovery told him so, David recognized the complexity of God’s great workmanship.  Every single one of us is a living, moving, breathing MIRACLE!   Of course, there are things that I can do to help my body work more efficiently and last longer, like eating right and exercising.  But for the most part, my body keeps me alive all by itself!   My heart beats on it’s own.  My lungs breath on their own.  My brain thinks on it’s own.  I don’t tell them to do these things, they just do!  It’s a miracle!

The dictionary defines “miracle” as:  a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.  Doctors can tell us what our bodies do,  and how they do it, but scientifically, they really have no explanation of why.  When we consider how "wonderfully complex" our bodies are — I think it's a fair assumption to say that it takes more faith to believe that our  body's design happened by chance than by a Creator.

I’m quickly reminded of Colossians 1:7, that says our Creator existed before anything else, and He holds all creation together.  When we have created something marvelous by our own hands, it becomes precious to us, and we protect what is precious, right?  Our Creator is no different.  God's human creation was fearfully and wonderfully made, and very precious to him!  He created us, and He holds us together in His hands.

Dear one, you may feel like you’re falling apart physically or even emotionally — but the One who formed you in your mother’s womb, the One who existed before your problems and your pain — is holding you together in every way imaginable.  He holds all creation together, and last time I checked, “all creation" includes you!  I can tell you, from my own experience, that in the darkest moments of my life, I know for certain that I made it through, and was held together by the healing hands of a loving God.

I am a living, breathing witness to the fact that there is healing in the Father’s hands!  Twelve years ago (this week), I lay in ICU after the birth of my son Caleb.  My Doctor had made every attempt to stop the bleeding , to no avail.  We learned later that I was at a 0% clotting ability at the time of his birth.  For two days, they administered a blood transfusion, where I would end up consuming 35 units of blood and 40 units of platelets.  (The average human holds 5 units of blood at a time, so that should give you an idea of how much blood I was loosing.)  They couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, and they could not stop the bleeding.  My liver and kidneys had begun to shut down, and they informed my husband Joel that it didn’t look like I was going to make it.  

As Joel sat by my bedside, thinking that he might be looking into my eyes for the last time, little did he know that God was about to do a miraculous work that would not only astound us, but every specialist, doctor and nurse involved.  

I can't make this up.  Caleb was born on Good Friday, and I lay on my death bed all of Saturday and into Easter Sunday morning.  Up until this point, they could not tell us what was wrong with me.  But I was finally diagnosed with HELLP Syndrome, and they began to treat it as such.  By Monday morning, I was COMPLETELY healed and released from ICU!  

We were informed by every specialist and doctor that despite the treatment they gave me upon diagnosis, I should not have lived. I had lost too much blood.  My liver and kidneys had almost completely shut down.  I was too close to death for my body to turn itself around.  

On top of being reunited with my new baby boy, my 2-year old Hannah-girl and my rock-solid husband, one of my favorite moments was when they rolled me back to the maternity ward. The nurses came running from every direction…hugging and kissing me, some crying.  They couldn’t believe that I was alive!  They told me, "we thought we had lost you!" 

 Several weeks later at a check-up, I complained to my OBGYN about my pain levels and all of the black & blue bruises all over my arms from all of the needles they had poked me with.  I was sitting in a wheelchair because I still couldn't walk.  She bent down, and looked me square in the eyes, and I'll never forget what she said:  "Christina, I don't think you understand.  You should not be alive.  You are going to feel significant pain for possibly 2-3 months.  But let the pain remind you of the miracle that has happened in your body."  She went on to tell me that she had never seen such a miraculous birth in all of her years in practice.  

Friends, there is healing in His hands!  Hallelujah!  

The gospel of Luke says that everyone came to Jesus and tried to touch him because healing power went out from him and he healed everyone — Luke 6:19.  The bible says on multiple accounts that Jesus laid hands on the sick, and they were healed.  Not only did He heal those with physical diseases, he also healed those who were mentally or spiritually sick - those troubled by evil spirits.  (Luke 6:18)   

But it get’s better!  He doesn't just heal our diseases and wounded heart.  Jesus proclaimed in John 10:28-29,  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me, for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand.  Once we are safe in the healing hands of God, nothing, or no one can snatch us away!  What a promise!  Even when we experience the devastating blows of living in a broken, imperfect world — even when the miracle of our mortal body one day runs it’s course and death takes us to the grave — the miracle of eternal life never ends!  You and I can experience His eternal (everlasting, never-ending, endless, perpetual, infinite, and boundless) life NOW….and forever!  

Let’s take these truths of our amazing miracle bodies and the healing hands of Jesus — and apply it to whatever is feeling broken in us today.  Do you feel like you’re falling apart physically or emotionally?  I have great news for you!  There is a greater Power, greater than the strength of whatever it is that is wreaking havoc on your body, soul and spirit!  Your Creator and loving Father wants to hold you, with healing in His hands.  Would you let Him?  You can experience the healing and loving protection of God’s hands RIGHT NOW — even in the midst of your pain.  

For many of us - we have not because we ask not...but we ask not because we believe not.  Believing that God wants to hold you, heal you and give you eternal life is a vital step in receiving it!   It would be ridiculous to ask Him  for any of those promises if you don’t believe that He is who He says he is, and He will do what He says He’ll do!  We are promised John 3:16, that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.  

Friend, would you believe in Him today and let Him hold you and heal you in the safety of His loving hands?  He is reaching out to you.  Will you reach back and take the eternal, miraculous life that He is extending towards you?  

Let’s pray. 

Dear Father,  
You made all of the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I am not an accident!  You made me so wonderfully complex, and I thank you for it!  You existed before anything else — before my problems and my pain — and am am asking that you would hold me together right now.  I am spiritually dead, but I want to receive your eternal life that I will experience from this moment on, and into eternity!  I want to live and dwell daily in the safety and protection of your loving Hand. I surrender my life to you, Jesus, and today, I make the choice to walk in Your ways for as long as I have breath!  

In Jesus name, 
Amen.

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