Yes I have a heart. I've been tested.

Yesterday morning very early, I was on the road to the hospital for a "test." One of these hoops the medical profession make you jump through so that they can find whats going on in the invisible insides of you. Having tests have long ceased to be a part of my life and apart from some early childhood health issues, I've been puttering along quiet nicely thank you very much. In fact I was proud of the fact that I was not on any medications of any sort. But that's a hill I need to die on, figuratively I might add. :)

Anyway after an hour drive and some change of clothes I was led into a darkened room and lay on a table where I underwent an ultrasound.

Comedy Randall wanted to take a pic of the ultrasound screen and pop the ultrasound results up on Social Media and ask for possible names. Comedy Randall noticed that the target of the ultrasound, my heart, didn't look like a heart at all. I wondered how Hallmark had hoodwinked us all into a different version of what a heart may look like. That was a huge branding success.  Of course funny Randall wanted to make comments to his evangelical friends that he saw no Jesus in there and what would that mean.

But as the 30 minutes continued on and I got past the comedic posturing I became sort of awe inspired by this muscle inside my chest that has been pumping and beating and keeping me alive for 53 years! Thats crazy. This thing inside of my chest that I was seeing on a screen for the first time, is the one thing that keeps me going, keeps me alive. There are no redundancies built in, this is it.

That really silenced my comedic thinking and the true awe-ness of it all just settled on me in a good appreciative way that made me feel deep gratitude. Then things in my head took another turn. I realized that the thing I was seeing on the screen pumping and moving in rhythm would one day just stop. Stop. Be done and done for good. Now that was kinda deeply moving. I get pretty used to this body just carrying on as it has done in the past. Used to it in ways that don't let me think about what it will be like when the physical parts just stop doing what they are doing. But seeing the physical plant and activity needed to keep me moving and breathing made me realize that there is really and truly a pump down in my chest that's keeping me alive, and that pump shall one day be done - worn out, kaput.  Well that was quite a downer, in a good thoughtful way though.


People much smarter than I am have written and thought much about us as beings. That yes we do have a physical body and physical dimension to us, but that the larger part of us, the truer part of us is in some form, spirit.

This physical plant I live in, though it is amazingly and wonderfully made, is but a small portion of who Randall Friesen is.  I think there are ways that we can see that even if we don't believe in a God who loves us. Things of eternity and intimacy, things of the human will and the power of desire and the greater power of love. There are things at work here that are simply not to be seen or found in any ultrasound or body scan. Things not even of the physical brain that can get ill and die, but things of the spirit that remain with us even after mental or physical illness.

These are the questions that force us if we are honest, to ask and look and search for more to this life than what we see in the mirror or on an ultrasound screen. But we must be honest in our searching and pursuing, because if we are not, we begin to lie to ourselves and when we do that, we will believe any little thing we tell ourselves. Then we lose our way.

No, there's more to this all than just blood and skin and a 53 year old heart that may or may not need some attention. I believe this life is all about honestly searching for those answers, and if we search with integrity and simplicity, Hope and Peace and Love will be found.


After forty five minutes of scanning and some personal deep revealing thoughts, I got up and got dressed and headed back to the field with a much greater appreciation for this domicile the God of Hope and Peace and Love has given me to inhabit for all these years.