TESTIMONY THROUGH STUDY

Favorite class of fall semester 2010: human anatomy, hands down. As stressful and time-consuming as it is, I can't help but love it. It has seriously changed my life.

I don't look at people the same way anymore, and that includes myself. When I see a person, I don't see a face; I see muscles, bones, ligaments, arteries, you name it.

In an odd way, this class has been a HUGE testimony builder for me. While sitting in class, I've often found myself quoting Albert Einstein in my head: "The more I study the universe, the more I believe in a higher power." For me, the more I study the human body, the more I KNOW a higher power exists.

I once heard an interesting analogy somewhere relating the creation of humanity to a watch on a beach. It goes something like this: pretend you were walking on a beach and you came upon a watch lying in the sand. You wonder how the watch got there. Someone explains to you that over an exorbitant amount of years, the combination of waves crashing upon the shore and natural elements caused the formation of the working watch. What would you think?

My thoughts: No way. That's impossible. There has to be something more ...

And there is. The human body is EXTRAORDINARY. It's difficult to believe that a watch, which works simply with only a few gears, would be created out of chance; imagine comparing that to the human body. As I sit here and type this, my hair is growing, my food is digesting, my heart is beating on its own, among thousands of other processes that must happen quickly and in perfect sync with each other. After everything that we're made of, after all of the systems and processes that must come together to form us as an organism, we're here. Not only are we here, though. We're here and we WORK. We SURVIVE. We THINK. We ACT. We CARE. We LOVE.

Sure, some could still manage to argue that our bodies are here by chance, that we were made "naturally" and without intelligent design. But what about our souls, our consciences, our minds that lead us to explore, to question, and to cause our bodies to act? What is that essence of life that gives rise to our sense of right and wrong and the attribute of consequence? Where did it come from?

I know.

Do you?

Midterm Madness

Let me first begin by apologizing if this post seems to be out-of-whack. Midterms have come up on me faster than a grizzly on an obese, unsuspecting hiker, and I may or may not be going crazy in response. My mind is going a million miles a minute, and just when I think I'm finished studying, something else manages to be added to my to-do list. Don't get me wrong, I love school. Really, I do. I feel my knowledge increasing more than it ever has before, and it's honestly one of the most gratifying feelings I've ever experienced. However, on the flip side, I thoroughly enjoy breaks. I can't explain to you just how comforting it is to know that while my family will be spending a week basking in the glory that is Disneyland, I get to spend hours on end in a lab with formaldehyde-drenched body parts as my mind implodes from memorization overload.

Despite the fact that my mental capacity could deplete at any moment, I am seriously having the time of my life. I feel like I've grown more this semester than any other period of my education, and I think it's fair to say that I owe most of that progression to my time spent in Haiti. Ever since I've come back from there I've felt more motivated, more confident, and more ready to take on the hard work that's ahead of me. It's ironic to me that I'm in the midst of the toughest and most demanding class schedule I've had the privilege of encountering, and yet my grades are the best they've ever been. As I look back on my freshman year, I realize that I had no idea of what I was doing. Doing well in school was at the top of my priority list, but the hard work required to do such a thing wasn't. Even though I managed to do pretty well with my studies, I know I could have done better.

So where does that leave me now? Long story short, I'm a pre-med sophomore at BYU majoring in Exercise Science and minoring in International Development. I'm living the college lifestyle and loving whatever comes my way. Doing well in school is still at the top of my priority list, but this time the hard work required to do it is there, too. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do with my life, but then again, life has a clever way of throwing things at you that you're not prepared for (like two weeks ago when I got called to be a Sunday School teacher).

Bottom line: COME WHAT MAY AND LOVE IT!