October 2009 Newsletter
Posted By cmbuuck on October 27, 2009
We ARE Wonderfully Made
(Tom Wacaster)
Over the past two decades, I have had numerous occasions to gaze upon the internal works of a computer. I am always amazed at the circuitry and complexity therein. An accident? Of course not! Now consider man. As Shakespeare once said, “What a piece of work is man!” Here is what our God has made:
The Ears: As piano has 88 keys, but each of your ears has a keyboard with 1500 keys. They are so finely tuned that you can hear the blood rushing through your vessels. The outside of your ear can catch up to 73,700 vibrations per second.
The Eyes: They are both microscopes and telescopes. One can look upon a star millions of miles away, or inspect the smallest of insects.
The Feet: Each foot has more than two dozen bones, none of which is wider than your thumb. But the foot is so manufactured with its ligaments, tendons, muscles, and joints that a 300-pound man can put all his weight on these tiny bones.
The Heart: This little muscle is about the size of your fist, but it beats 4320 times an hour. That amounts to approximately 40 million beats a year. A single drop of blood can make a complete trip around your circulatory system in 22 seconds.
When considered as a whole, indeed WE ARE WONDERFULLY MADE! And to think that somebody came up with the silly notion that this happened by chance! Three weeks ago I had the opportunity to hear a wonderful lesson on the very topic we are considering. Here is but a portion of the wonderful evidence that indeed, we are wonderfully made: The basis for the development of a human being in his mother’s womb is a complex molecule known as DNA-deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA is the coded information, present in every cell, which forms the instruction manual for human development. The code of DNA is composed of four chemical bases: Badenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine B, represented by the letters A, G, C, and T. Human DNA consists of about three billion bases arranged in such a way as to form inconceivably complex “words.” These genetic “words” are the basis of life. Without this information, the cells cannot reproduce and the body cannot be formed in the womb. The position of each base or “letter” is highly significant. Here is but a portion of the wonderful evidence that indeed, we are wonderfully made: The basis for the development of a human being in his mother’s womb is a complex molecule known as DNA-deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA is the coded information, present in every cell, which forms the instruction manual for human development. The code of DNA is composed of four chemical bases: Badenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine B, represented by the letters A, G, C, and T. Human DNA consists of about three billion bases arranged in such a way as to form inconceivably complex “words.” These genetic “words” are the basis of life. Without this information, the cells cannot reproduce and the body cannot be formed in the womb. The position of each base or “letter” is highly significant. Genetic diseases, such as sickle-cell anemia and Down syndrome are caused by glitches in the genome, some as subtle as a single misplaced letter. If written out, the information in the DNA of one cell would fill a thousand six-hundred page books.
FDA Halts Embryonic Stem Cell Trail…Concerned about the formation of cysts in animals, the food and Drug Administration (FDA) called a halt to a proposed clinical trial that would have injected embryonic stem cells into people with spinal cord injuries, according to the San Jose Mercury News. The Geron Corporation had planned to treat spinal cord injury through the first-ever approved trial of embryonic cells in humans. Derived from the destruction of human embryos, the cells were intended to “help nerve fibers replace myelin, a fatty insulating substance that often gets stripped away when spines are injured, inhibiting the body’s ability to transmit sensory signals,” the Mercury News reported. However, the FDA shut down the trial after cysts developed in animals who had received the same treatment. Beyond the moral objections to obtaining cells by killing human beings, scientists are concerned that the use of embryonic cells in humans will lead to the development of uncontrollable tumors (called teratomas). Geron released a statement claiming that the “cysts were non-proliferative, confined to the injury site, and had no adverse effects on the animals. No animals developed teratomas or any other ectopic structure.”
Women’s Care Center…It is surprising how it can take so little to save a life. A kind greeting…a listening ear…an ultrasound. When everyone around her is negative, what a scared, young, pregnant woman most needs is just somebody positive in her life. This was certainly the case with “Anna”, a nineteen-year-old nursing student. Anna was living with her father and stepmother as years ago her parents had divorced, and she had become estranged from her mother in the ensuing custody battle. When Anna found out she was pregnant, she went to her dad. He was crushed and would not even look at her. Her stepmother was more “practical,” as she encouraged Ann to “take care of it.” Anna’s boyfriend wanted no part of the situation, telling her to “get rid of it.” Anna thought her only choice was to have an abortion. That is until she met a kind counselor who spent over an hour just listening and letting her cry and talk it out. The counselor also offered Anna an ultrasound. Seeing the ultrasound, Anna bonded with the tiny life growing within her. However, as a teenager and a student, she did not see how she could possibly go it alone. The counselor encouraged Anna to get back in touch with her mother and see if she could help. Ann did just that. The next time she came to the center, her mother was with her. It turns out that her mother was willing to help Ann bring her precious child into the world. Anna is now working on an adoption plan. A baby was saved because Anna found somebody positive to talk to at the Women’s Care Center. A childless couple will have a baby to love because Anna chose life. And it took so little. Pregnancy testing, counseling, and an ultrasound for a young woman like Anna only cost $83 (This is only .22 cents a day for a year). To save a life for such a modest amount is an unbelievable privilege and blessing. Last month, over 1,000 women came to the Women’s Care Centers on Webster Street and Inwood Drive. Many of these women would be lost without the compassionate support and understanding that they receive at these centers.