Body Worlds....AMAZING

If you have ever wondered if there is a God, you need to visit the Body Worlds exhibit. Robb and I took our boys to The Leonardo in Salt Lake last night to see the Body Worlds exhibit. Basically, it is a CRAZY exhibit of people who have donated their bodies for display. It takes about two hours to go through the entire exhibit because there is an AMAZING amount of stuff to look at. It would take too long to explain everything, but some of my most favorite parts was the exhibit on the lungs. The have on display a set of lungs that had never smoked, and sitting right next to it, a set of lungs from a smoker. The non-smoker lungs were a gray color, and the smoker lungs were black and charred. It was so AMAZING! My boys (yes, I took all four of my boys. I was a little nervous about that, but they loved it. After they giggled and tee-hee'd over the boys and girls' privates, they thought it was really interesting) vowed they would never smoke after seeing those lungs. Sometimes I think it takes a real visual image to get the point across.

The exhibit also had a part dedicated solely to the exhibition of the fetus and its development. I have always had a reverance to the whole reproductive process, but I appreciate my body so much more today. There were vials with fetuses at each week in-vitro. At week four, the fetus just looks like a little mass of tissue, but by week 9, you can actually see stubs. I'm not going to get on my soapbox right now about abortion, but you cannot visit that exhibition and then tell me that a baby is not a baby until a certain point in-vitro. A fetus has a heart beat by the fourth week, and the central nervous system is already developing. I don't know about you, but that sounds like there's a lot of life going on at that point.

In one case, there was a placenta that carried twins. The placenta has so much circulation that there are vessels and veins throughout the entire things, and to see 2 umbilical cords. I paused for quite a while at that point and thought about my body and what it does and what it has done. I looked at my four children walking around and looking at everything and paused and gave thanks to my Heavenly Father for giving me my body with all of its capabilities. Carrying 8 pound twins to term was no easy task, but my body did that!! I grew two hearts, two lungs, two kidneys, four arms, four legs, and 20 fingers. No wonder I was always exhausted, but I grew two human beings that are healthy and strong and full of life....what an amazing thing I did.

I also paused and remembered when I was carrying Cannon and was 14 weeks along. At that point, a 14 week fetus is very much a baby. I was sitting at the table and felt a gush of warmth. I looked down and noticed I was bleeding very badly. I had miscarried before and knew that any blood wasn't good, but this was a lot and I knew that I had lost my baby. I went to the hospital devastated. As I rested on the table, the doctor came in and asked me what was wrong. With tears streaming down my cheeks, I said, "I lost my baby tonight." His reply was, "Well, with this bleeding, was there pain or contractions." I thought about it for a minute and realized that there were none of those. I told him, "No. There was not any pain, but there was an incredible amount of blood, so I'm sure I lost my baby." He said, "Let's do an ultrasound before we decide that." A cathetar and full bladder later, the ultra-sound tech revealed that my baby was still very much alive but that my placenta had torn. I didn't know what that meant. I could see my baby kicking (which I was thrilled to see), but a torn placenta can't be good, right? Well, little did I know that with a lot of rest and even more prayers, a placenta can heal and repair itself and not harm the baby. That's exactly what mine did, and Cannon was born healthy and white-headed. What a miracle. How smart is my body?

We live in a world that is always doubting the power and influence of God. Oh, but how clever is He.....? Just when you feel everywhere you turn, God is being removed from everything, I visit an exhibit where his power is being shouted from every bone, vein, tissue and hair. However, He doesn't do it in a loud and obnoxious way...His message is humble and quiet, but more powerful than words. It's a message that states, "I love you enough that I made your body be able to do all of these things. I love you enough that I made you to be like me." That's a message I will work harder to never forget.

So, when I feel like I have weight to lose or I'm frustrated because I woke up with a new zit, I will work harder to remember the gift I have been given, even if it's not always the way I want it to be. It's a gift much bigger than myself and 10 extra pounds, stretch marks and wrinkles only gives it character, right? I'm thankful for this gift....