The Hearts are EVERYWHERE! Yes, it’s that time of year where we have hearts showing up all over. There’s heart shaped candy. There’s heart shaped vases. There are heart shaped cards and heart shaped decorations. We have some heart shaped decorations in our house too! For instance, we have a bunch of wooden hearts strung on a string, going across the front of our fireplace. They look like the little Brachs conversation hearts, but they are bigger.
What seems funny to me is the fact that all these “hearts” we see around us don’t look even remotely like a real heart! Here’s a picture that shows what your heart actually looks like!
The drawing also shows what some of the major arteries and veins look like as well. Your heart is an impressive thing!
An average adult heart beats around 100,000 times per day. This adds up to over 35 million beats in a year. So, when you were 21, your heart had already beat about 735,000,000 times. (That’s 735 million times!) By age 40, it’s beat around 1,400,000,000 times. (That’s 1 billion, 400 thousand beats!) By age 60, the number goes up to around 2,100,000,000. (That’s 2 billion, 100 million beats!) At 80 years old, your heart has beat about 2,800,000,000 times. (That’s 2 billion, 800 million times. And should you live to be 100, the number will be 3,500,000,000. (That’s 3 billion, 500 thousand times!)
The average human heart pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood daily, usually without problems. But when there are problems, it compensates and often contines to flourish. When an artery is blocked, often, other, smaller arteries will enlarge to make up the difference. People live with “irregular heart beats. (They typically do better if it’s corrected.) The heart’s four chambers and valves push blood in the right direction, throughout your body. There are even valves in your arteries that help keep things flowing the right way! It’s a beautiful design.
The heart too, is part of a larger system. If there were no blood, it wouldn’t need to pump. If there were no arteries, veins and cappilaries, the blood would have no way to travel to where it’s needed. If there were no lungs to oxygenate the blood and get rid of the carbon dioxide, all the rest would be useless. It’s an amazing, complicated system, and if any part fails, you die! But it’s working, or you wouldn’t be reading this! 😊 Your circulatory system feeds oxygen and nutrients to your body, from the top of your head, to the tips of your toes.
Systems like this don’t create themselves. No design comes into being without a designer. Random chance only creates chaos, not order. This system and the others in your body were brought into being by a wise creator. God spoke these systems into being with the animals. (Animal hearts come in 1,2, 3 and 4 chamber varieties.) But with humans, God took His time.
He made us different. God (Father, Son and Spirit) made us in His image. Genesis 1:27 (NASB95) God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
The way we are put together Screams, “THERE IS A CREATOR!” Follow Him!
John
