Yesterday was a wonderful day. My meetings at church were uplifting. Hearing little children bearing their testimonies that they know that God is real and how he takes care of us was so touching. Learning the lesson in Sunday School was great too but my favorite was Relief Society. Our President, Carey Anderson, talked about hearts since it is Valentine's month. Her son was born with a heart defect and she talked about his diagnosis, surgery and recovery. She pointed out that our hearts beat 100,000 times each day, 36,500,000 times a year. What other machine can do that for 80 or so years and rarely need tune ups?
In my case it has beaten.......well, I'm not even going to do the math. The heart is where we feel emotions like love, fear, grief and pain and that is where we feel the holy ghost. She talked about how God loves a broken heart (and contrite spirit). Things that are broken are loved by God such as the ground as you plant a seed. How a seed needs to break open to sprout and how after the plant grows, we need to break open the wheat to make flour. Our hearts need to be open to learn and feel.
I was thinking about last year when I started have heart palpitations. They were so bad one night I was thinking I was having a heart attack and Wayne took me to the hospital. They strapped the monitors on me and ran lots of tests. They called my problem PVC's. (I remember it because that is what Wayne uses to pipe the sprinkler system). Not the same, but anyway.....they were so bad at times that they took my breath away every few seconds. The Doc said they were bad but that they were not dangerous. He still sent me to the cardiologist to have a second opinion. He was right. There was no known cause for them and they are not dangerous. They lasted for many weeks though and stress could make them worse as could cherry coke. I got used to them just as they went away. I get them now and then but not like they were before. It made me think about my heart and what a great machine it is. I think about my family history of heart disease and it scares me some. Dad had a quad by-pass, my brother had 2 heart attacks and they were both thin and active. My Grandma Marchant died in her sleep one night of heart failure at about my age, my uncle died of heart failure at a relatively young age too.
I know this magnificent machine in my chest needs a better work out than it's been getting and that I need to lose weight to make it healthier so I am finally making a New Year's resolution. I am going to get in better shape. It is hard with a leg that doesn't work right and a head tumor and medicine that make it very hard to lose weight but I know I can do better. I love my heart. It deserves better.
If you are reading this you probably know me and I love your hearts too. Happy Valentine's Day early.
