The Wonder of an Egg

          Ever really looked at a raw chicken egg?
          Do you glimpse the miracle of life? Yellow scrawny feet? Wee eyes that blink and see? Feathers?  The orange bill? Inward parts necessary for survival and to create other chickens? Mechanisms for the chick’s peep, the hen’s cluck and the rooster’s crow?
        Those things are in there if the egg is fertilized. God put life into eggs—DNA that blueprints what color the feathers will be, the size of the poultry—awesome things— just as He put amazing designs in the tiny eggs that became you and me.
         The life within eggs is why they symbolize Easter. Eggs hint at the wonder in all of us at a time when we think about Resurrection of the human body. Life beyond the grave is an amazing concept, yet science reveals we are more than flesh.
          I weighed about 7 pounds at birth. I could gain 500 pounds and still be the same person, then lose several hundred and still be me. My arms and legs might be amputated, and still I’d be the person who started as a wee fertilized egg in my mother’s womb. Surgeons could cut away bits of my brain; or remove organs and transplant someone else’s liver, a kidney, lung or heart and I’d still be who I am.
        My body’s 100 trillion cells are constantly dying and being replaced, which means I don’t have the same body as last year. Scientists state the body rebuilds itself several times during a normal lifetime, with the exception of the nervous system, which includes the brain.
        Yet, new brain cell growth has been discovered in the hippocampus, a center of learning and memory. The discovery occurred in a neurogenesis study at the University of Lund in Sweden by neurobiology professor Anders Bjorklund and Fred H. Gage, a neurobiologist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Now Gage seeks to learn whether brain-cell growth occurs in the cortex.
         Scientists from Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine estimate our skin is completely rebuilt every seven days and every single cell in our skeleton is replaced every seven years. About 300 million cells die every minute. If they did not regenerate, all would be dead in about 230 days.
         The future of medicine lies in understanding the mechanisms by which the body renews itself throughout life, according to Stanford’s researchers.
          Life is miraculous, but a mystery. Our eyes can’t see the awesome life in an egg, nor can we perform surgery and find the eternal soul of a man. But we know by remembering how we arrived here and the magnificence of the temple in which we live, we are more than a body. It’s not difficult for me to believe the life inside us is eternal, though our bodies die and decay.
         The Easter story and history declare Jesus endured Rome’s capital punishment, but their soldiers couldn’t hold him in the tomb and He walked out alive three days later.
         We’ve heard the words of Jesus so many times at grave sides: “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall live. Whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die” (John 11:24-26).

         But how we got here and where we’re going is a question of faith. No theory on the origin of life can be proved. I choose to believe the Bible.

Ada Brownell is a retired medical reporter for The Pueblo Chieftain in Colorado and the author of the 2011 book,  Swallowed by Life: Mysteries of Death, Resurrection and the Eternal available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.

Life: The message of Christmas

John 3:16 says it all: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Jesus is the only way any of us will get off this earth alive. He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).

Reaching him is as simple as whispering a prayer in faith. "Without faith it is impossible to please him, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him" (Hebrews 11:6). Faith is a decision.  We decide to take the leap into belief.

Hebrews 11:1,3 says faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see....By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command and that what is seen was not made out of what is visible."

I don't find it difficult to believe he formed everything because creation is awesome. Just take the seeing eye, the hearing hear or anything as common as gravity, and I have to believe we have a Designer. But believing he cares about me and will answer prayer? Well, truth is when I think of a baby born of a virgin who grew into a man leaving a trail of love and miracles behind him, I must believe. I have experience miracles and answers to prayer. Sometimes the answer is "no," however.

Of course faith is a choice. Yet we have evidence Jesus lived and died on the cross for sins and no matter how his enemies wanted to, they never found a body. Everyone of his followers except Judas and John gave their lives to preach about his resurrection from the dead and forgiveness of sins. People do die for false doctrines--but no one will give his life for something he knows is a lie.

Any idea about who we are, where we came from and where we are going takes faith--and faith is required by God for salvation.

I hope you decide to believe today and accept Jesus as your Savior. Christmas is a great time for spiritual birth.

THE REASON FOR CHRISTMAS JOY

THE REASON Jesus came to earth was to do something about death. Jesus is the Redeemer promised in Genesis 3:15 right after Adam and Eve sinned. God warned the first couple if they ate the forbidden fruit, they would die.

There in God’s garden, they became mortals. Their flesh would be subject to illness and dying, and it would affect every person born thereafter.

 Yet, in His mercy, God would do something about death through the Promised One. Sin is so terrible because it hurts us or someone else, so horrendous, the Heavenly Father required a blood sacrifice to atone for it.  But the blood of bulls and goats was only accepted because the Messiah would come, and Jesus became the sacrifice for sin—once, for all, so we can live forever (See Hebrews 10).

 Those who killed Jesus thought the joyful songs that filled the earth after His birth would be silenced. Yet, three days later, the Messiah was out of the tomb, and the singing began again and continues to this day.

JOY TO THE WORLD, THE LORD IS COME

Book on death swallowed by victory coming

My book, "Death: Swallowed by Life," will be published soon. The book talks about the miracle of life, and the wonder of coming from an egg no larger than the dot at the end of this sentence. Also, when we think about our bodies and who we are, we realize we're more than a body.

How we arrived on earth is as astounding as the miracle of leaving our bodies here and our spirits going to heaven.

Two weeks ago, my wonderful older brother passed away. So sad to see a body we loved put into the ground. By faith we know he lives, as Jesus said we could do if we accept Him as Savior. Yet, I loved his body as well. Scripture says the saints who are with Jesus will come back with Him when He catches away the church:

 "But I would not have you to be ingnorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not prevent them which are asleep.

"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of Go; and the dead in Christ shall rise first;

"Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

"Wherefore, ciomfort one another with these words" (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).