Who knew a human bio class was food for the soul??

So. I'm in this human bio class that is KICKING my big fat behind. And my behind is only getting bigger and fatter because I'm sitting on it all day trying to get through at least one lesson a day. (A lesson includes at least one 15-25 page chapter and a 30-60 minutes lecture presentation, plus a self check assignment). I've gotta finish this class before I go to Europe or I can say "Buh bye Master's program!"

The first two lessons blew. Majorly. You know, one is a basic, "SHOVE EVERY BIT OF BASIC REVIEW YOU NEVER NEEDED TO KNOW BUT NOW YOU DO!" type lesson. Three chapters in that one. Shoot me. The second was on the chemistry of life. OMG. This lesson is still kicking my butt. I'm studying all the other chapters that are going to be on my test so I can compensate for the crappy score I'll get in that section. And then lesson three- the cell. That's when the fear of lesson two kicked into overdrive and I took meticulous notes on EVERYTHING.  But that's when I started to really get intrigued by my topic. 

Our bodies, heck matter in general, are incredible. Like, who thinks up "See those little pieces of matter? Let's make a nucleus of neutral and positively charge particles, then circle these negatively charged particles around it like a merry-go-round on cocaine!" Seriously? And who thought that would work? I mean, come on. BUT IT DOES! IT TOTES DOES!  And chemical bonds? BRILLIANT! Those are like the only thing I remember from lesson two cause I made really easy mnemonic devices for each one ("Ionic bonds are ironic bonds cause opposites attract!"). But seriously. Who figures that out? Well, God. Obviously.

So yeah, being totes amazed by creation. But, oddly enough, the next lesson actually... dude, it was something I totally wasn't expecting.

The next lesson was on reproduction and fertilization. Now, I took family life in middle school, but seriously, nothing this chemically in depth was discussed. I thought this lesson was going to swallow me whole with all the new vocab and internal anatomy I had to learn.  But as soon as I started reading about how everything is set up to have maximum opportunity to reproduce... okay, don't laugh, but... I felt the Spirit.

No joke.

It snuck up on me, the feeling of comfort and amazement at how we have been made to create. Have you ever learned what has to happen for a child to be created? I mean, SERIOUSLY! It's a battle against the odds! Against external and internal situations! And then, once an egg gets fertilized, does that mean there'll be a baby. NO! It has to go through even more crap, so to speak, to begin growing!  And have you ever seen the stages of development from a zygote to a fetus, to a baby?? It's a drastic difference! Do you know what has to happen for everything to work out? Holy. Crap.

So maybe all of you already knew all this, and in some basic middle school level I did too. Honestly, though, the more I read the more I realized that creating a person is... it's incredible. And to make a person is the same basic cellular process of making any other organism. Which means... you are literally creating life the way Heavenly Father did. You have turned two haploid cells into a diploid, and this cell unwinds its DNA and copies it over and over. And over. And over. And then these cells with infinite possibilities start turning on certain genes so they can form bodies.

We can do that. We can create. We can be like Heavenly Father.

Oh my goodness. It just... hit me. Hit me like a brick wall. What we have been created to be able to do.

And, sorry guys, but this whole section made me so grateful to be a woman. Even though I'm not really experiencing on the level of the fetus, I get to be there for all of it. All of it. And I get to help. I get to be the home, the incubator for this body.
Maybe I won't. I mean, I've never been in a position to know if my body will support pregnancy. For all I know I could be barren. Seriously. So maybe I won't get to experience that till the Millennium. But oh man... I'm looking forward to it.

I still don't know when a spirit enters the body. But the moment the sperm is absorbed into the egg, meiosis is resumed. Life commences. There's no denying it. So whether the spirit is there or not, I don't know. But I do know that life begins at conception. The moment those chromosomes drift towards each other to form a whole new set of DNA. The act of trying to become a live being.

Gosh, I'm probably coming off as some crazed fanatic. But I'm telling you, this chapter seriously enriched my perspective on 1) THE Creation, you know, the 6 day one; 2) Human creation, you know, the one most of us can do; and 3) the sacred and exciting role I have as a woman. (All y'all can keep the Priesthood, I'm keeping my ovaries!)



How can anyone learn about science and not see God's hand? How is that possible?



We had this young man who is Catholic attend our New Testament Institute class. And one night one of the class members went off about some miracles being explainable and how that's sucky, blah blah blah. But then this guy raises his hand and said something that I completely agree with. He said, "Just because you can explain a miracle, doesn't make it any less of one."

BAM!



Humans. We are amazing. What we are capable of is both incredible and sacred.  I wish I had the words to truly express how I feel.



This class is kicking my trash, but hey, it's strengthening my testimony, so how can I complain?