During the sermon in church today, Pastor Stephen spoke on James 3: 1-5 and taming your tongue; knowing when to speak and when to hold your tongue.  Admittedly, this is a lesson I am still learning.  I’ve heard this passage many times and it pings me every time, especially the part about “Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.”  Wouldn’t that be amazing to keep your whole body in check?  Definitely something to continue working on.

The point that jumped out at me today was when Pastor Stephen made the comment that all the muscles in your body come in pairs, except your heart and your tongue, which are the pair for each other.  Having taken many courses in Anatomy and Physiology over the years, the science nerd in me wanted to come home and look up the innervation of (the nerve that supplies) both muscles, just to see if there was by some chance a common nerve between the two.  What I found was fascinating.

I started to think about verses that I knew contained words about the heart and the tongue.  These are the 3 that specifically came to mind:

Matthew 12:34: “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” (NRS)

Proverbs 16:24: “Kind words are like honey— sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.” (NLT)

Psalm 34:8: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”  (NIV)

This is where it got really exciting for me.  I pulled out my anatomy book and looked up what nerve innervates the heart and the tongue.  It turns out that part of the Vagus nerve (Cranial nerve 10 – the number ten becomes important in a minute), supplies part of both the tongue and the heart, as well as part of the lungs, stomach and intestinal tract.

The part of the tongue that Cranial nerve 10 innervates is responsible for (you guessed it!) taste, as well as the laryngeal muscles (for phonation or sound creation).  In your heart, the Vagus nerve is responsible for your heart rate.  In your lungs, the Vagus nerve regulates your breathing and in your stomach, the Vagus nerve helps with regulation of the digestive process.

So biologically, for the verse in Matthew, the heart and the tongue ARE connected – the same nerve that helps control your heart, is also responsible for sound production for your tongue and helps provide the breath behind the words so that they can be heard.  In the same vein (I know we’re talking about nerves here and not veins), this connection would also explain why when you know something in your heart, many times you also feel it in your gut.

I have previously felt like the Proverbs verse was just poetic. Looking at this same verse in a new light, honey tastes good in your mouth, then goes down into your stomach and the nutrients are absorbed by your intestines.  And whose heart isn’t happy when you have something that tastes good in your mouth?  (I think you could just as easily insert “chocolate” for “honey” but that’s just my opinion – maybe it would need to be dark chocolate in order to get some health benefits).

As for the verse in Psalms, understanding how to “taste” God’s goodness has been a challenge for me – don’t get me wrong, I appreciate a good meal as much as the next person, but I don’t think the verse only pertains to a culinary experience.  After my study tonight, I think it means more that you know God is good in your heart and your mind and your gut, all of which are connected with the same cranial nerve.  (I wish I had put all this together when I was taking exams in Anatomy all those years ago – I probably would have received much better grades on my tests!).

What about the fact that this particular cranial nerve is number 10?  Is there something specific about the number 10 that might also be relevant to this one crazy nerve that goes to so many different and seemingly unrelated parts of your body?  A quick, and not nearly exhaustive, internet search led me to a page which states: “Ten is also viewed as a complete and perfect number, as is 3, 7 and 12. It is made up of 4, the number of the physical creation, and 6, the number of man. As such, it signifies testimony, law, responsibility and the completeness of order.” (http://www.biblestudy.org/bibleref/meaning-of-numbers-in-bible/10.html).  So this perfect and complete nerve is what we engage for what goes into and comes out of our mouths.  What an awesome responsibility for one nerve and what a responsibility we have to use well all the functions that this nerve provides.

I was amazed by all these connections tonight.  I hope you were too.  Thanks for listening (that’s Cranial Nerve 8).

We dropped off our sweet girl, Jett, at the eternal dog park on Thursday.  She would have been 13 in March and she joined our family when she was 10 weeks old.  She gave large, slobbery kisses, made sure we left the house with her hair on us somewhere, was always happy to see us come home, and occasionally snored in symphony with JJ.  She loved to ride in the car and was well traveled – she went with us to Colorado and Arizona, including a walk along the edge of Grand Canyon.  She hated the kennel and was good friends with our house sitter.  Our house feels very empty and I find myself still looking for her when someone rings the doorbell or it’s time to go to bed.  She was our “child” and we’ll miss her dearly.

Death is ______________ (fill in the blank):  confusing, saddening, maddening, inexplicable, traumatic, sometimes predictable, sometimes unpredictable, inevitable, a relief, peaceful, closure, completion, a celebration.  Death can be any combination of these emotions, depending on the circumstance.

I have been to seven funerals/memorials in my life. My first encounter was in 7^th grade – one of my classmates had a brother who was hit by a car while on his bicycle.  I went to the funeral with a friend and her mother.  My friend cried quietly through most of the service and looked over at me once with a look of puzzlement since I didn’t cry that day.  I think at 13 I wasn’t quite sure how to process the whole experience, but I remember feeling badly for my classmate, who was a macho kind of guy – he suddenly looked so much smaller and I had never seen him cry before.

The rest of the services I have attended have all been in the last 10 years (my grandfather, a family friend who lived with us for a short time while I was in high school, my dad’s business partner and her husband (at different times), and two of my sister’s children.  Each time I have had a different response.  My grandfather’s service was a celebration.  He lived to be 96 years old and died of old age.  He was in the Army during WWII, was married to my grandmother a few months shy of 66 years, was a doctor, flew a Cessna and had 3 children and 7 grandchildren who all loved him.  There were no tears that day either.  His memorial was a reminder of a life well lived.

The three family friends were more somber as they were all disease process related – cancer or the like.  They were all in their 70s or 80s, which no longer seems as old as it once did.  Their services felt more like I was there to be support for the surviving family members (does it strike anyone else as odd that the words “survived by” are typically used in an obituary?  I think I would rather have my obituary read something like “leaves a legacy of” or “was loved by”).

My sister’s children were a much different experience.  I felt a profound sense of loss and grief, both for the pain that my sister and her husband and daughter went through and for the two precious lives that never had the chance to begin.  Many tears were shed over many days.  My nephew and niece’s birthdays are today and tomorrow, so we remember them especially this time of the year.

For our sweet girl, her ceremony was a few quiet moments in the vet’s office with just the two of us.  Thursday afternoon was the first time I witnessed the loss of life in person.  She very peacefully went to sleep and I am comforted that she is not in pain anymore.  Leaving her on the table in the vet’s office was ranks up there with one of the hardest things I’ve had to do.

My dad came over Wednesday evening to say goodbye and took some pictures for us.  Here is one of my favorites from that night.  We love you, Jett.

I spent last Saturday afternoon putting away Christmas decorations and taking down the Christmas tree.  I was talking to JJ on the phone for part of the time and made the comment that putting up the decorations after Thanksgiving is always something I look forward to and seems to take no time at all, but when it comes time to put everything away, the reverse actions with the same decorations seems like a chore and to take forever.  JJ asked me why I felt that way.  In the moment, I told him that putting the decorations up was an indication of things to come, an expectation of a joyful season and that taking them down meant the end of something and the house seems bare and empty.

I’ve thought a lot about my response since our conversation and have been asking myself if there is a deeper meaning to why I felt that way.

I have a closet in the house where I keep all our Christmas decorations.  The boxes all have a Tetris-like matrix of how they best fit in the space and the boxes are all marked with what goes in each box.  There are certain places in the house that certain decorations go every year.  (Are any of you like this?  It may just be my type-A personality).  I like things to be ordered, predictable.  I’m working on it, but change has typically been a challenge for me – I have to think about an idea for a while and get used to it before I can implement something new.

I started to wonder if my faith is like that too.  Do I keep it all compartmentalized?  Are there certain things I only do on Sunday that are not integrated into my Monday through Saturday life?  Is Sunday kind of like putting Christmas decorations up?  I get inspired and look forward to a new week ahead and all the possibilities that it holds and then feel like the rest of the week is a chore and lackluster if I don’t accomplish everything I set out to do on a Sunday?

As I walked around my living room that afternoon, I realized that my house without Christmas decorations is not bare, it is just decorated differently.  True, the environment is not as shiny or ornate (our ornaments are a hodge podge of ornaments collected throughout the years and I still like tinsel on the tree.  Yes, I know tinsel isn’t popular anymore, but it brings back happy memories of being a kid), but it is still homey and serves its purpose well for the other 11 months out of the year.  I think our faith walk is like that – there may be moments of shining brilliance, but most of the time, we simply walk out the tasks that we are called to do that particular day, all of which have purpose and add a richness to our lives (even if it may not seem like it in the moment).

My dad sang in The Vocal Majority for many years as I was growing up.  There was one song they sang as part of their Christmas show every year that has a line that says “It’s not the things you do at Christmas time, but the Christmas things you do all year through.”  I’ve heard that song over and over throughout the years, but perhaps this year in a way differently than in years past.  During the holidays we are all a little kinder, more patient, more forgiving and smile more at one another.  I think that’s a good place to start for not keeping Christmas in the closet and instead making it a greater part of our daily lives.  Anyone else with me?

Side note – God is still a big God who works miracles.  A sweet friend of mine received a clean bill of health last week which is a huge answer to prayer.  So thankful!

Happy New Year!  I haven’t written for a while and have been trying to find the “right time” (the “write time” too) to get back into it.  The New Year presents a great time to reinvent myself. Historically, I have felt like there has to be a major life event to have a tabula rasa moment (starting high school, going to college out of state, starting my career, getting married), but I have learned over time that you can choose to make change at any point, on any given day.  Sometimes I think we get comfortable in habit and routine (good or bad habits and routines) and feel like change is difficult.  My husband (who deals with change much better than I do) will remind me that change is simple, but not easy.

I decided to start 2018 with a small change.  I woke up with a series of ideas and wanted to get something written down before I forgot them.  I have also learned over the last year or so that when inspiration hits, if I don’t write it down then, it will be gone (especially if I think of something in the middle of the night and try to convince myself that I’ll remember it in the morning).

JJ and I plan to spend some time later today talking about what we want to see happen in 2018.  He read something the other day that recommends writing down your resolutions in question form so that your brain works on solving the problem/answering the question instead of trying to fulfill a statement.  I’ve already found my brain coming up with ideas of what steps need to be taken to accomplish some preliminary ideas we have discussed.  Habakkuk 2:2 states “Then the LORD replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.” (NIV).

As for my blog, I have been a bit hesitant to put my goals and ideas in print in public.  I struggle with very common fears – do I have anything to say that anyone would want to read, how far do I realistically think this could go, etc?  I’m reminded of the poem by Marianne Williamson “Our Deepest Fear.”

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness

That most frightens us.

 

We ask ourselves

Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

 

Your playing small

Does not serve the world.

There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking

So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

 

We are all meant to shine,

As children do.

We were born to make manifest

The glory of God that is within us.

 

It’s not just in some of us;

It’s in everyone.

 

And as we let our own light shine,

We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we’re liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others.”

I’m currently rereading Joel Osteen’s book “You Can You Will.”  On page 112, there is a paragraph that jumps out at me every time I read it.  He says “I read that the wealthiest places on earth are not the oil fields of the Middle East or the diamond minds of South Africa.  The wealthiest places are the cemeteries.  Buried in the ground are businesses that were never formed, books that were never written, songs that were never sung, dreams that never came to life, potential that was never released.”  Maybe that paragraph leaps off the page for me because we live next to small cemetery of one of the founding families of our city.  Sometimes I wonder what the lives were like of the people who are remembered there and if they accomplished what they hoped to during their lives. When I get to the end of my life, I want to look back and feel as if I fully used the gifts I was given and was obedient to the voice of God.  Today, I feel like this is the next step in that process.

So, here is my vision for my blog.  I hope for inspiration for a book, an avenue for publication and an invitation to speak at a women’s conference.  If you knew me growing up, speaking in front of people was the LAST thing I would ever want to do.  JJ and I have had such a positive response from the small groups that we share our story with, I keep getting the nudge from the Holy Spirit that there are other people and larger groups that would also benefit.

What are your hopes for 2018? What are your dreams that you haven’t told anyone else about?  We can’t get there on our own – other people hold the key to opportunities and connections that we don’t have in isolation.  As I posted on my Facebook page last night, may 2018 be a year of realized dreams and fulfilled potential.

PS – In keeping with a post from earlier last year, here is a picture of us at Christmas.