Of melodrama, being purebred and cutting your thumb off

One would think that slicing half the nail off my thumb while attempting to chop an onion would result in a geyser of blood  spraying and splattering everything in its path and making the kitchen look like a murder scene.

 When this tragedy happened, I grabbed the offending thumb and emitted a scream so loud I think my neighbors felt a shift in the force.  My husband and kids raced over, dialing 911 as they flew to my rescue to see what body part lay on the floor after such a blood curdling squeal of anguish.

So I showed them my thumb… and as eight eyes looked intently at the severed nail…one tiny drop of blood…slowly and lazily idled its way out. I squeezed it, and shook it and waited for the deluge of arterial, gushing mayhem I just knew was coming. And the one tiny drop sat there…friendless, while my husband rolled his eyes and suggested I get a Bandaid…a small one.

Well, if you’ve read my post on my hating to drink water, you probably know that my body likely did not have any liquid to spare, but still, I was quite miffed that it couldn’t have backed up my melodrama a little bit better. At the same time though, I was glad I wasn’t carrying the mutated gene of many unfortunate members of the early European royal families that rendered their blood unable to clot after even the tiniest cut.

The inbredness (is that a word?) of the European royal family resulted in a mutated gene that seemed to have originated with Queen Victoria, being spread throughout England, Spain, Russia and Germany. (See folks there is a reason you shouldn’t marry your cousins – being purebred only works for roses). 

This mutated gene resulted in one tiny part of the 21 stage cascade of events that causes your blood to clot, to not work properly.

This one tiny change in the DNA caused one tiny protein not to have the right instructions to fold properly, which means it could not interact properly with other proteins and this caused the 21 stage process to come to a grinding halt. For people with hemophilia that means a tiny cut or bruise is potentially fatal…and it was to several princes including Victoria’s own son Leopold, and helped to contribute to the fall of the Russian dynasty when Prince Alexis had it.

It is mind boggling to me that it is believed that our beautifully functioning bodies could have evolved to its state of amazing harmony through random mutations, when we see over and over that one tiny change in DNA is enough to annihilate a system that is critical to our survival. I, on the contrary, believe this is extraordinary proof of a creator and a beautiful design.

Here’s a great animated videofrom Johns Hopkins University. It is awesome in that it is complex and the words make no sense  unless you have a PhD in Biochemistry. But just watching the visual of what happens when blood clots is worth a thousand words!!!!

When I cut my nail off my thumb, the blood vessels near the cut immediately contracted to limit the flow of blood to the injured area.  Under normal circumstances, clots do not happen inside the body. All the necessary parts flow in your blood in an inactive form, yet ready spring into action at a second’s notice. 

When you get cut, a bazillion types of proteins, and calcium and vitamin K and factor this and factor that begin this complicated dance where hands are held and partners are handed off to new partners and the music in the background becomes increasingly animated and the tempo picks up and the flurry of activity becomes a beautiful waltz…

The result of which is that instead of me bleeding to death  and having multiple flashing lights of ambulances at my door as I am carried off amid a flurry of tears and prayers…is that I have a lazy drop of blood and disinterested family and a disgustingly efficient clot that healed up beautifully in a few days. 

I don’t even have a stupid scar to show for it…  but boy am I amazed at the complexity of the music God has made in my body that keeps me alive and praising Him every day.

Genesis 1:31 And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

Cuz Kool Aid tastes better and showers are overrated...

A former coworker once told me she was pretty sure my organs were stuck to my insides. I had just proudly announced that it was nooooo problem for me to go the entire day without peeing because I really didn’t need to  drink water. Man, how invincible I felt at 25 years old and how naive I was. “Me, drink water – that’s for middle aged people who walk with their 64 ounce bottles everywhere” 

Fast forward about 16 years and though I still hate to drink water, I have become sorely reminded of my dependence on it…and my fascination of it.

Growing up, there really was no reason for me to love water – it didn’t taste as good as Kool-Aid (gotta love sugar), I didn’t swim (cuz virtually no one who grows up in Jamaica can), I couldn’t ice skate (I value my bones in one piece) and showers were over-rated (there was no water pressure in Jamaica so a shower was essentially standing under a trickle). I had good reason to hold it in disdain. 

However, water became one of the main reasons I, as a young agnostic, needed to take a closer look at God. That – and belly buttons, but that is another blog in itself.

I had told a friend in college that the Bible was a bunch of Jewish fairy tales and that the human body was a masterpiece of evolution. I had never really researched it and couldn’t tell you why I believed it but I held very tightly to that belief because acknowledging God meant I needed to suddenly look at life and eternity in a way I really didn’t want to.

Yet, it was my very studies in Biology and Chemistry that made me start to ask questions – a lot of them.

I didn’t know that when my Chemistry professor started going on in his monotonous voice about the “anomalous expansion of water” that it would begin to lead me closer to God.

 Let me back up in case I left you sputtering “ anama-what? anomo – who?”.

The anomalous expansion of water.

Science 101 – solids, liquids and gases. In general, the molecules in gases are far apart and it is the least dense of the three. Liquids are in the middle and solids are the most dense. A solid is more dense than when it is in its liquid state and will sink to the bottom of that liquid.

Pretty standard information. except when you come to water. It’s an anomaly. (see I didn’t make up that phrase – it makes sense because water does something  no other non-metallic liquid does when it is turning into a solid). 

It’s an anomaly – its behavior is just plain strange and abnormal. The only other substances that behave strangely like this are bismuth and antimony and no one really cares where in the periodic table they are!

See, when water gets colder it becomes more and more dense until it gets to 4°C. Unlike other liquids, instead of continuing to contract, it then starts to expand so that ice is actually less dense than liquid water! Scientists can’t completely explain why the hydrogen bonding in water causes it to behave that way.

“ Woop di doo”, you may think. Why is this interesting?

It’s interesting and absolutely vital because it would profoundly affect the survival of  organisms living anywhere water freezes. Simply put, aquatic life would not survive the winter anywhere ice forms if water did not act in this…anomalous way!

Anomalous expansion of water – causes ice to float on top of water. It doesn’t sink to the bottom and kill the fish, and everything that survives under the ice in the winter.

 As one writer puts it:  If water did not have this strange property, the entire pond or lake would freeze solid and fish and other living creatures would be killed, since most animals would have their cells disrupted by the needlelike ice crystals that form in the water within their cells.

Anomalous expansion of water – ensures that the water below the ice is insulated from the colder temperatures above, providing a more livable temperature at the bottom of the body of water.

Anomalous expansion of water- pushes down  oxygen in the water’s surface for use at lower depths for use by the aquatic animals and plants.

It’s a curious fact, this anomalous expansion of water. Taken for granted yet, quite significant. It’s like a whisper in the wind, a little wink from God to remind us of little things He has done for us.

 It beckons us to come and look closer at the delightful things he has left in this world for us to discover Him.

And for one young woman to whom water had little significance, it certainly did.

Romans 1:20  For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse

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Photo courtesy of: pondat38nurseryrd.wordpress.com

My grandmother's gnarly toes...are on MY foot!

My toes could try out for a horror movie. They are long, gnarly and probably have an extra digit. They can pick up objects  well and can give a pretty good pinch. My husband claims he is not afraid of them but I have seen the way he shudders and scoots away when my toes touch him in bed! I can laugh now, but growing up I was horribly embarrassed by my toes and the only thing I loved about them was that they were the same exact toes as someone I loved more than I can begin to explain – my grandmother!

My grandmother was a beautiful woman and I don’t just mean on the outside. She was quite possibly the most generous person I have ever known. She fed the children in her district, she raised more than twice as many children as the 7 she had. In fact for a couple years, she and my grandfather raised me during the week. She was feisty (I felt that she could stand up to anyone). She was smart (she was the village midwife and alternative medicine healer), and she was sweet (she loved my grandfather, her children and the dozens of grand and great grand children she had with a strength I so admire).

But back to her toes. My grandmother had those long, gnarly toes too. I bet my grandfather shied away from them in bed too. My mom however, has stubby little toes on a foot that looks nothing like mine. Those gnarly genes certainly did skip a generation and I am waiting in anticipation to see them one day on a grandchild’s foot since both my sons have taken their short, non descript toes from their father.

So as I admire my toes, I think about DNA and how things like that get transferred from one generation to another. Every cell in my body (except my mature red blood cells) carry the gene for those gnarly toes. The DNA in the cells of my skin, my brain, my bones and yes, the DNA in the cells of those toes all carry that gene as well as all the other genes that program how my body works. But how does that gene get passed down to my kids? 

Well, the DNA in the eggs in my ovaries that with the equal help of the DNA in my husband’s sperm became the blueprint for those delightful little boys we have now. While I’m sure I passed on the gene for the gnarly toes, it appears the genes for my husband’s normal (read: boring!) toes must have won out in what was allowed to show up. My gnarly toe genes must have gone the way of recessive blonde hair genes, only allowed to show up if they can gang up in numbers and there is no other gene to challenge them for the right of showing up on the outside of a person. Yes, I am ashamed to admit, my gnarly toes are from weak genes…sigh.

Evolutionary scientists say that evolution takes place as a result of a random beneficial mutations giving an organism an advantage in surviving and reproducing  more than other less well adapted living things. In fact mutations, random ones, are believed to have caused our grand evolution from “simple” single celled organisms to awesome living things like plants that perform photosynthesis for us all to have food, or amazing creatures like the cheetah, or the bombardier beetle that makes toxic chemicals to scare off predators, or humans like me, albeit with gnarly toes.

Without going into the details of the fact that most random mutations cause deadly or debilitating conditions the vast majority of the time (can you say cancer,cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia etc etc), let’s think about how that mutation would make it to another generation.

Let’s say tomorrow, I undergo a mutation in my DNA. This mutation will change the DNA coding for my gnarly toes. If I am lucky it will code for a change in my bones and make my toes petite and beautiful. More importantly the mutation will not have caused any harm to me so that I survive to have children. Now we have to assume that this mutation took place also in my eggs in my ovaries, because this the ONLY DNA that will have the ability to pass this trait on to a future generation. OK, so my ovaries have eggs with viable mutation. Now, we have to make sure that one of these eggs of the 400,000 or so eggs that a female produces will actually be part of producing another human being. If it isn’t one of these, this mutation doesn’t do diddly as the next generation will not have this new petite toe DNA. Then there are the whole compatibility issues that the changes in the DNA from the female, is compatible with the DNA in the male. (Think of the fact that if you breed a horse and a donkey – though very similar in DNA will result in a mule that is 100% of the time sterile and unable to produce offspring).

So with this new petite toe mutation, I would now need to have another child to pass on this gene. This gene would have to "survive" all the conditions mentioned above to make it to the next generation. Happily, and with a somewhat warped sense of humor I realize the odds of this tiny thing happening is probably as close to zero as you can get, so again I look forward to forming my family club of the future: Girls of the gnarly toed sisterhood!!

Friends, I believe God put plenty of variation in our genes to allow us to be a myriad of beauty for Him and to allow us to adapt and survive under many different situations. My toes may be gnarly but it’s because the Lord God made me that way!




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The EYES have it!!

The playful twinkle in my husband’s eyes were the first thing I noticed about him when we met. It turned out that his eyes were a true reflection of his always laughing, fun loving and kind personality. And it sure didn’t hurt that they were green. I’ve always thought green eyes were rare and amazingly gorgeous.

Our first son has that twinkle too…but with a mischievous glint. I could tell moments after he was born when he picked up his head, looked around the room and gave me a “look out world!” stare. He has charged headlong into life since that day!

When I saw our second son’s eyes, I declared them to be …soulful. Deep in passion and thought. The eyes of the guitarist that strums around a campfire. Sure enough, this is my son who sends us all love notes, is always playing music and is an avid reader at age 5.

How does the eye do that, I wonder? How does it project to the world your intentions and dreams in a single glance? How does it bark orders, say sorry or invite you along for an adventure? And as amazing as just looking at the eye is, it is just the cover page of a much more sophisticated and intricate organ inside.

Evolutionists say that the simple light sensitive spot that allows single celled organisms to detect and move away from light, somehow developed through random DNA mutations into this magnificent organ called the eye. I say:  The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord has made them both” (Proverbs 20:12

Charles Darwin, the father of evolution was himself skeptical of the eye having evolved, and this was before many of the intricacies of the eye were even discovered.  He said:

 “to suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.”

You said it, Charlie – absurd. Took the words right out of my mouth.

Let’s take a quick look at the eye. Remember this overview barely skims the surface of its abilities.

First let’s remember that the eye only functions when all its parts are working, and not till then.

An eye without a lens will not work. An eye without an optic nerve connecting it to the brain will not work. An eye without a cornea will not work. And so on and so forth. Until all the parts of the eye are present and functioning – it will NOT work! 

So why would a one celled organism with a light detection spot continue through completely random mutations, to build an increasingly complex organ, over time, that DOES NOT WORK?!! Evolution cannot plan. It cannot anticipate. It cannot hope. (Oh please, please let this mutation produce vitreous humor to fill the eye, and a cornea to start focusing the light, c’mon DNA lemme see what you got!). Yeah…say it again, Charlie –“absurd”

Scientists call this irreducible complexity. Basically saying, if it were any less complex or unfinished, (say it with me). IT WILL NOT WORK!

Let’s focus instead on a few parts of this amazing finished product: the two globes that act as a video camera always adjusting and focusing so we can see crisply and accurately.

 It has a seamless integration with our brain to allow images to be translated into information we can understand. This requires a complicated system of photo-chemical receptors, electrical signals, specialized cells and more all working harmoniously.

The six muscles attached to the eyes allow for large movements of the eye but also for small imperceptible tremors that shift your eyeball ever so slightly in a fraction of a second, without any effort on your part to allow for accurate focus.

The lens of the eye focus the image on the retina which lines the back of the eye. Special muscles make the lens thicker or thinner to focus an image. Specialized cells in the retina (rods and cones) allow us to see the image in various light levels, and in color.

The eyes have its own windshield wipers (the eyelids) and wiper fluid(tears) which keep the eyes free of debris and clean. The eyelashes (which are not just for batting at someone to flirt), help keep that dust and debris from landing in the eye.

Sounds like someone thought of everything doesn’t it? Sounds like Someone wanted to make us perfectly and wonderfully. Sounds like Someone really cares about us.

I would be remiss if I didn’t add to that …Someone cared about us so much He sent His only begotten Son in the world to die for our sins (John 3:16) and make us blameless before God when we accept that Salvation. Sounds like our amazing God!

If you would like more detailed information on the eye, please visit these websites:

http://www.detectingdesign.com/humaneye.html  (This is a scholarly article detailing and rebutting in a respectful, scientific  manner the argument for the evolution of the eye)

http://www.creationmoments.com/content/micro-marvels-human-eye-0  A short simple look at some highlights of the eye, especially the complex retina

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v3/n3/seeing-eye  A short, interesting overview of the eye from a creation perspective.

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Milk, ambulances and One who provides

Twenty three weeks into what had already been a touch and go pregnancy with my first child, I suddenly went into labor. Apparently I had an “incomptetent cervix” –  man, you think they would have come up with a more non-judgemental name for it – but there you have it. My baby at 1lb had become too heavy for my body to hold in and was well on his way to being born and an almost certain death.

It is miraculous the doctor even caught it, as most of these conditions end in a sudden and unexpected pre-term birth with a baby too small to survive. I had just changed doctors a few weeks before. God had just given me the intuition that I needed someone else to be my caretaker.  I found myself on an ambulance heading to Tufts Medical Center in Boston, MA. It was actually really cool to look out the back of the ambulance and see all the cars pulled over to the slow lane on the highway and realize I was the reason. Or actually, that my baby was. We had already decided to call him Isaac and I prayed he would in fact live to be the child of promise that the Biblical one was.

When we got to the hospital and I got pumped full of drugs,  someone tried to enroll me in a study for Extremely Low Birth Weight Infants should Isaac survive since we were at almost 24 weeks. It was overwhelming to say the least but I experienced a complete peace that passed understanding and a faith that was from God – it was certainly not my own. I informed the lady that I would not be enrolling in the study as my baby was NOT going to be born early.

I also got a visit from a Neonatologist. She gently explained to me what could possibly happen should this baby come at 23-24 weeks. Here’s the thing that stood out to me in the midst of it all though. I still remember asking her if I would be able to produce milk since my body wasn’t at full term. She smiled – happy to give me some positive news. She said, “Your body will absolutely produce milk. In fact the milk will be different  than if you had gone full term. It will be specially suited for digestion for babies that have immature intestines.

 Do y’all get that!! My body was prepared to specially nurture this child!

Does this sound like something that random changes to DNA could have produced? To plan ahead for an event that hadn’t happened. For a child that would not in any way strengthen the gene pool as one of the fittest? No it couldnt, but my God who loves us and cares for the weak made a way. He made a path to help my 1lb baby to survive should he come early.

Here’s a quote from http://www.lactationconsultant.info/preterm.html 

It appears that there is an unknown biological mechanism in mothers who deliver prematurely that increases the concentration of anti microbial agents (sIgA, Lactoferrin and lysozyme), anti-inflammatory factors and immuno modulators. (Goldman et al 495, 498) These immunological components are vitally important for the VLBW infant to prevent nosocomial infections, sepsis, Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC), bacterial and viral infections.

And

Human milk feeding, even in small quantities, for the very low birth weight (VLBW) infants, provides benefits that we are only beginning to understand. Preterm mothers' milk contains amino acids and fat blends that aid physical growth. Breastmilk components have overlapping or interdependent functions. The fat globules in preterm milk are smaller thus aiding in their absorption directly from the immature gut. 

I could tell them what that unknown mechanism was: His name is Jehovah  Jireh – God who provides.  (Remember that childhood chorus?  “My God shall supply all my needs, according to His riches in glory. He gives His angels charge over me. Jehovah Jireh cares for me…Jehovah Jireh cares for me”).

Anyway, to make a long story short, after 16 weeks of complete bedrest…my sweet boy was born on his due date. Forty weeks to the day.  My sweet miracle boy.  My child of promise. My one of millions of reminders that God is in charge…He made us and He cares for us.

When Abraham was provided a replacement ram for his son Isaac he must have felt similar joy to what I feel as I write this.

"And Abraham calleth the name of that place 'Jehovah-Jireh,' because it is said this day in the mount, 'Jehovah doth provide'" 

Gen 22:14

Belly Buttons and Bendy Ears Introduction

What do you say to your child when they ask if man really came from monkeys? Or if life started from a lightning bolt in the primordial stew on earth billions of years ago?

What if they say that if they can't believe God created them, then how do they believe everything else the Bible says...?

What do you say? Because if those questions haven't crossed their mind yet...they will

Your answer is crucial and most parents really don't have a simple, scientific and concrete answer.

If you want to be able to answer these questions and in so doing give GOD the glory for the great things he has made, then join me in this journey as I am wading through these questions too.

It's my journey because it became an essential element of my faith, a crucial part of my existence as a Science teacher in public and Christian schools, and a burning passion of a mom of very curious boys.

I stay up at night thinking about this and praising God as I find amazing and awesome clues that point to our glorious Creator.

I have a degree in molecular Biology and a masters in Education but it really didn't prepare me to answer these questions when they came up for me as I became a Christian in my 20's. But it provided the framework to answer the questions on which my curiosity was built and the platform to share it with others.

You know everyone's got a "thang"... Some people play sports, or cook a mean chili, or program computers. My thang is researching creation....trying to make sense of all the information that's out there. And then I try to explain it on a simple, easy to remember, and understand level. Something my students in middle school would understand...something I can explain to my 5 and 8 year old boys.

I don't claim to have all the answers or have it figured out. But I see soooo clearly that what is out there is God--breathed!!

In the beginning... God created belly buttons...and bendy ears... (to be continued)